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Does anybody have a good link for a layman's overview of how mRNA vaccines work? Lot's of nervousness from people around this, and would love to be able to hel
by blhack 6y ago
Does anybody have a good link for a layman's overview of how mRNA vaccines work? Lot's of nervousness from people around this, and would love to be able to help quell some of that.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoEdit: I do plan to get the vaccine, but as a software engineer I know beta versions usually have the most “bugs” — and I have the health privilege to be in the back of the line so I will!
- mchristen 6y agoCitation?
- nobleach 6y agoA sunburn can change/damage your DNA.
- throwaway894345 6y agoAnd people take precautions to avoid it because skin cancer can result. Not sure that's the best counter example.
- nobleach 6y agoI'm not trying to argue that it's a "good" thing, simply that tons of things hack our DNA (there are even some studies that emotional trauma can have repercussions imprinted on our DNA) My major point is that DNA hacking/damage isn't always a life-ender. Even skin cancer is often removed without issue.
- itodd 6y agoIt can't fundamentally change your own DNA. The mRNA codes for a stabilized version of the sars-cov2 spike protein. Your cells then use the mRNA to build that protein. Your immune system will then build up a response. It is a terrible idea to wait for a version 2 of this vaccine. Get vaccinated or this will not go away.
- depingus 6y ago"mRNA vaccines do not affect the DNA inside the cell – the synthetic mRNA fragment is a copy of the part of the virus RNA that carries the instructions to build the antigen of the virus..." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine
- orblivion 6y agoI just thought of this analogy today. Others should correct me if I got this wrong. If I want to use your printer (ribosomes) to print out some stuff (proteins), I don't need to send files (genetic instructions) to your computer (nucleus). I can just get on your wifi, send my files directly to your printer, and go home. Except I accidentally left the protein at your house. But none of the genetic material sticks around.
- coffeefirst 6y agoThis is irresponsible fearmongering, and says more about how lackadaisical software engineering is towards quality control than anything else. On the other hand, if you want to read about how software works when it actually matters, "space shuttle coding style" is fascinating.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoWhat's irresponsible about healthy, low risk individuals waiting until all of the high risk people get the vaccines first? If there's autoimmune issues that pop up when the scale goes from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions, I'll know about it ahead of time and be able to take the appropriate action, such as choosing a non-mRNA vaccine such as the adenovirus type from Astrazeneca.
- kingnothing 6y agoThe risk of a vaccine having negative effects is basically nil. The biggest issues historically have been around cross-contamination, not anything to do with the vaccine itself. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....
- mulmen 6y agoThe irresponsible thing about healthy, low-risk people not taking vaccines is that it puts high risk individuals at higher risk of catching the virus because high risk people are the ones that can't take the vaccine. Vaccines are not 100% effective but they don't have to be. The goal here is to reduce transmission in the population to a level where the virus can no longer spread. That is only possible if enough people take the vaccine and healthy people should absolutely be in the front of that line. This is not a purely personal choice. You have to understand that by deciding not to immunize yourself you are making a decision for everyone else.
- inglor_cz 6y agoThis method has been in development since 1978 (when then-young Hungarian scientist Katalin Karikó started playing with mRNA in her lab in Szolnok) until today. Hundreds of mice died during the search for bugs before anyone dared to inject a human subject. It cannot be ruled out that the whole concept of RNA vaccines still has bugs, but it is nowhere near "it compiles, ship it now!" software betas. The process is much more risk-averse.
- ogre_codes 6y agoThe beta test (clinical trials) are long over, they had it months ago.
- orblivion 6y agoMy recent absolute favorite is Lupe Fiasco explaining it to Hotep Jesus (some NSFW language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0MA48bfshw#t=2h14m3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0MA48bfshw#t=2h14m3s The overall video is a about vaccines in general (Hotep Jesus is rather skeptical of them), but Lupe explaining how mRNA vaccines work starts at this timestamp. There's also a place where the audio cuts out. It's only a minute or so, but they go back and finish where they left off.
- nobleach 6y agoI get that that's probably Lupe's shtick, but I think half (or more) of the things he's describing to Hotep Jesus are things that your average person doesn't know!
- subungual 6y agoIt's such a refreshing contrast to status quo anti-intellectualism the way he hams up the shame of Hotep's not knowing.
- dnautics 6y agoI love how Lupe doesn't simplify it so far to say "it never goes in reverse".
- orblivion 6y agoI'm curious what those rare cases are.
- dnhz 6y agoViruses! RNA viruses like SARS-cov-2. They make the cell reverse transcribe their RNA cargo into DNA, and then the cell produces more viruses.
- orblivion 6y agoThat usually (right?) doesn't lead to staying in the host's DNA, but I understand that some of our DNA is virus DNA so it DOES happen. Viruses per se aren't exactly rare, so maybe he specifically meant this phenomenon. But also - that's reverse transcription, not reverse translation. Maybe Lupe made this point a little too late in his description. EDIT: Sorry, moved around the above after rethinking
- nobleach 6y agoI'm interested in this as the only pushback I've heard has been from some Christian folks on YouTube claiming that we're no longer "human" if we hack or mix our DNA. I tend to look at it more like "right to repair". If I buy an iPhone, I should be able to hack it to my heart's content. I have no idea if that's the angle you're mentioning. I'd be really interested to hear the other potential dangers that others see.
- orblivion 6y agoI'm an atheist more or less and I agree with this sentiment. I'm not fond of transhumanism. But I don't think the mRNA vaccine process fits this description.
- nobleach 6y agoYeah, I certainly didn't intend for it to be a faith/atheism battle. I'm simply stating that so far, all I've seen has been that one perspective. I'm interested in the potential fallout others are predicting.
- CamperBob2 6y agoQuite a bit of our DNA isn't "human" to begin with, never mind our cells themselves. In fact, most of the cells in our bodies are bacterial, as I understand it. (Edit, that's oversimplified and/or inaccurate, see below.)
- tsimionescu 6y agoThat's highly debatable. Also, obviously 'most' begs the question 'most by what?' if it's just by number, then that seems unlikely but possible. But most by weight, volume, or, more importantly, functionality - not really, that's definitely human cells.
- CamperBob2 6y agoInterestingly, you're right in that the "most of your cells are bacteria" point is a myth. I'm not a specialist, and fell for the pop-sci BS. Apparently the real ratio is closer to 1:1 ( https://www.nature.com/news/scientists-bust-myth-that-our-bodies-have-more-bacteria-than-human-cells-1.19136 https://www.nature.com/news/scientists-bust-myth-that-our-bo... ), if we can trust Nature's summary of several recent articles. With regard to functionality, that's a very open question. We're constantly finding that features that didn't seem useful are not just functional but important. This trend can be seen at multiple levels, from gut flora to "junk DNA." As for what fraction of our genome is either shared with other non-human organisms or originated with them, it's tough to find a straight answer on that, but rest assured it's far from zero. See https://www.cshl.edu/the-non-human-living-inside-of-you/ https://www.cshl.edu/the-non-human-living-inside-of-you/ . That's been well-understood by everyone other than religious fundamentalists for some time now, and there are countless legitimate sources that can be cited.
- Someone 6y agoIt ‘injects’ RNA into your cells that causes them to make part of a virus (parts of the outside of it, not the parts that make it reproduce). Those parts, in turn, trigger your immune system to build up defenses against the virus so that, if it encounters the real virus, it can contain the infection. mRNA degrades fairly rapidly, so this won’t keep triggering your immune system (but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine#Side_effects_and_risks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine#Side_effects_and_r... says the mechanism used to do the ‘inject’ part may trigger its own immune reaction)
- anotheraccount9 6y agoCheck out Dr. John Campbell's video titled "The next COVID year and vaccine function". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smm_ZvJqJk4&t=7m28s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smm_ZvJqJk4&t=7m28s
- Diederich 6y agoWe watched 100% of Dr. Campbell's videos for the first few months of the pandemic, and my wife still watches all of his stuff. Highly recommended. He's strongly evidence and data based and steers clear of most anything that can reasonably be considered 'political'.
- maxerickson 6y agoThey trigger an immune response, priming the immune system to be ready for the virus, preventing or limiting infection and disease. I'm not sure what information beyond that will actually be received and comforting to a lay audience that is skeptical.
- ghostpepper 6y agoThere is a good article here but unfortunately paywalled https://www.wsj.com/articles/moderna-and-pfizer-are-reinventing-vaccines-starting-with-covid-11605638892 https://www.wsj.com/articles/moderna-and-pfizer-are-reinvent...
- g4k 6y agohttps://archive.is/aIBV0 https://archive.is/aIBV0
- Balgair 6y agoAhh, yes, ModeRNA's vaccine is some very clever stuff. The way that one works is a bit complex. Essentially, they still want your immune system to recognize that the virus is bad and then make antibodies against it. Usually, you inject broken up bits of a dead virus into a person. The immune system sees the foreign objects, and makes antibodies against it. Withe ModeRNA's vaccine, we go inside out. You have the body produce inactive parts of the virus itself. In this case, the 'spike' proteins of the viral capsid. They do this by injecting mRNA into you. Through some complex bio-chem, the mRNA that codes for the spike protein gets into your cells and makes the ribosome complexes produce the spike protein. These then get out of the cells, again via some complex bio-chem, and the immune system sees these spike proteins. The immune system then builds antibodies to the spike proteins, just like with a regular vaccine. Basically, you skip a few steps in the antibody creation process. I want to stress the mRNA injection part. This method skips the DNA, meaning that you are not editing the genetic code of the cell. The real magic here is the potential such a method has. With this method, you can have much better targeted cancer cures, much broader flu vaccines, and time limited protein production. Think time-limited genetic engineering, minus the actual gene editing. Want to glow green for a few days? No problem. Want to mitigate diseases caused by missing DNA? Just take this. Note: This is copied from a previous comment of mine here:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25047289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25047289
- orblivion 6y agoI'm wondering if you could clarify a couple things for me: 1) "Skipping steps" This appears to be doing the opposite. In an old vaccine, you'd just dump a bunch of spike proteins into the system. Here, you're adding the step of making the body produce them. Could you clarify? 2) Why not just produce those spikes in a lab? Is it just much less resource intensive to have the bodies make them? 3) As far as stressing that this doesn't alter DNA: Wouldn't it suffice to say "this does what viruses already do, but less"?
- bsmith89 6y ago1) Yeah, besides picking the step of manufacturing virus parts, I agree, this is going a step back in the virus's life cycle. 2) It's hard to produce proteins in the lab. Our own cells are pro at it, though, including all of the post-translational modifications (like attaching sugars and careful protein folding) that can make all the difference. 3) Pretty much. Since it's just one gene being introduced, it will not produce new virions, only the spike protein that our immune system needs to recognize. Source: Am microbiologists, although not a virologist.
- therealdrag0 6y agoWikipedia may or may not be at the level you're interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine#Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine#Theory
- klmadfejno 6y agoNormally cells use DNA to make mRNA, which are recipes for building proteins. In this case, the proteins are antigens used to fight COVID. mRNA vaccines give the bits needed to skip to the last step in the process. Notably, there is nothing about "genetics" involved here.