Quote (EndlessSky @ Aug 30 2021 01:55pm)
That's pretty awesome.
Indeed it is. The best part is that direct introduction of mRNA is likely to have less side effects than traditional vaccines, since your body is being introduced to the agent in a similar way to a natural infection but with a much smaller dose, and the vaccines can be reformulated in very short order since the only thing that changes in the formulation is the order of nucleotides. There's no need to re-synthesize protein and see how every protein interacts with every cell. The synthesized protein is sequestered in individual cells and is then shepherded by other cells to be introduced to your immune system in a controlled way, so the odds of a spike protein escaping into the blood is much lower than runaway viral infection.
Traditional vaccine would go
Protein introduced to your muscle tissue outside of cells --> Protein eaten by macrophage --> macrophage introduces it to a B cell which makes antibodies
mRNA goes
mRNA introduced into cell --> Protein is synthesized by cell --> Cell is killed by NK cell and given to a T-Cell --> T-Cell gives it to a B Cell which makes antibodies
By bringing T-cells into the mix you amplify the immune response in a more specific way, and you avoid ever having the protein in systemic circulation.