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The New Technology Behind COVID-19 RNA Vaccines and What This Means For Future Outbreaks
The New Technology Behind COVID-19 RNA Vaccines and What This Means For Future Outbreaks
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RNA is the nucleic acid that codes for proteins that cells make. Basically, it has
all the information needed to be able to synthesize the protein. The idea of these
vaccines is that you deliver the RNA that encodes the viral protein you’re
interested in, and let the cell actually make that protein and to then stimulate the
immune system.
Also, the manufacturing turns out to be relatively straightforward for these types
of vaccines. You don’t have to grow them in cells or do a lot of things that either
make manufacturing difficult or [require going] through a lot of hoops with the
FDA to prove that your cells are not contaminated. It bypasses all those steps.
There are two versions. The current two vaccines that we’re dealing with [use]
just the messenger RNA. There’s also a version [that uses] a self-replicating
RNA, where it also has the information needed to copy that RNA, so you make
more copies of it. They’ve been worked on mostly for cancer vaccines. Both self-
replicating and non-self-replicating RNA have been explored for quite a period of
time for immunization purposes as well.