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"?
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.
Is this bio-chem designed by Moderna, or is it just a property of the mRNA? Does all mRNA follow the same path into the cell?
Not all mRNA follows the path that the Moderna vaccine uses.
Someone else please chime in if I am wrong here, but their method is basically use little lipid micelles (fat micro-blobs) that cover the mRNA. Because of some biochem, these micelles can then enter a healthy cell and disgorge the mRNA. This is kinda how a virus works as well. However, these micelles seem to be very fragile, hence the very cold temperatures needed for transport.
Once in the cell the mRNA then diffuses and is translated by ribosomes into protiens
Is it as simple as amplifying a DNA template with the spike protein sequence and any necessary promoter sequences then adding some RNA polymerase with free RNA nucleotides?
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