Solid layman reasoning, just wanted to clear up one slight misconception: > mRNA vaccines used the spike protein because we believe that to be the most conserv

Solid layman reasoning, just wanted to clear up one slight misconception: > mRNA vaccines used the spike protein because we believe that to be the most conserved proteins The spike protein was chosen mostly because it was well known to serve a primary role in the process of infection and subsequent immune response. Ongoing vaccine research is exploring the use of additional proteins, because they have been demonstrated to be a major factor in viral replication and protective immunity. For example, nucleocapsid (N) protein antibodies are induced by natural infection, but not by vaccination using the current solely spike protein focused mRNA vaccine formulations. N protein antibodies likely have a synergistic effect with S protein antibodies, and thus vaccine formulations incorporating both elements may result in more robust protection, especially against variants. See my other comment on this thread for supporting excerpts and citations from the literature. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28320340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28320340