Re:mRNA's next challenge: Will it work as a drug?
by contravariant on Friday December 18, 2020 @08:52PM
(#25474261)
Would you perhaps be able to answer a question I've been wondering about?
Is this way of injecting mRNA really any different from just injecting someone with a virus? Not in the sense that it makes you ill but in the sense that a virus would do the same thing just with more harmful mRNA.
Re:mRNA's next challenge: Will it work as a drug?
by jartelt on Friday December 18, 2020 @09:14PM
(#25474369)
In this case, the mRNA just gets your body to produce a part of the spike protein that is on the virus. Once the spike protein is floating around in your body, your immune system recognizes the spike protein and starts an immune response. The spike proteins themselves cannot actually replicate and attack the body. They are just a small part of the virus structure.
If you inject with virus, presumably the virus would begin to replicate and attack your body.
Re:mRNA's next challenge: Will it work as a drug?
by mancerayder on Friday December 18, 2020 @11:20PM
(#25474992)
It's RNA to make the spike protein, so your immune system becomes infuriated and produces a reaction to kill cells that turned into factories for that protein.
You don't want the virus RNA, that would be presumably all that plus more!
The answer to your question is, it's a subset of the virus.
The doses have 30-100 ug. Assume 1)this is pure RNA, and 2)the molecules are about the same size as the spike protein sequence. With these assumptions, a dose gives you 10^10 RNA molecules. Average sputum samples show about 10^6 molecules/mL; max samples show 10^9/mL. I don't know how vaccines dilute when you inject it into somebody's shoulder, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to say the final conc will be between 10^6 and 10^9 RNA/mL.
So RNA is going to be in us, whether we want it or not. The question is, do you want the whole genome, or part of the genome. I'm picking the one that doesn't make more virus.