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This is how the end of the pandemic begins, with mRNA vaccines beating others to arms. One of these, the Moderna vaccine, was reportedly developed in less than 48 hours. Another Pfizer mRNA vaccine is now approved in the UK. It is preparing to go into arms next week and awaiting expected US approval.
But what are these vaccines about and not others that may mean the end of the COVID-19 pandemic? How can something developed in 48 hours be injected into your body? Can they really be over 90% effective when just a few months ago scientists said they would be happy to have 50% to 70% effectiveness if it was achieved? Does all this make sense?
It turns out yes.
We are looking at perhaps one of the greatest human achievements and certainly a candidate for the greatest developments in modern medicine. It is a combination of science and art that is based on a long and complex research that goes back decades, but which makes it possible to design the genetic code to produce only the spike protein of the virus so that the cells produce it and so does the immune system. produces antibodies to it.
With specific antibodies in its arsenal, the body is ready to pounce on the real virus when it attempts to enter healthy cells.
You saw the photos of the virus. It is covered with these tips. After receiving the doses of the mRNA vaccine, the body is ready and waiting for those corona spikes.
This is science.
Here is the art.
Engineered mRNA acts like a virus, but instead of instructing the production of proteins that make you sick, it provides the recipe for creating the protein that will save your life. After the protein is made, the cell breaks down the vaccine, but now the cell can identify the new protein and the immune system, recognizing that it doesn’t belong to it, produces antibodies to build an immune response, just like a natural response against COVID. -19. Except in this case, the body will build a reservoir for when the real attack comes.
This is a new approach to vaccines, which alters the injection of real sterilized virus as in traditional vaccines. It’s a leap that deserves further appreciation, along with a more detailed exploration of how it works.
Let’s start by understanding what a virus is and how it makes you sick.
Every human cell is like a busy city, a kind of New York, with around 60,000 types of proteins moving around, doing the work needed to keep your body functioning and alive. Information on how to make more of those proteins and how to make your body’s cells is stored in a “safe vault” in the cell’s nucleus, which is your DNA. He does not leave, lest he be compromised along the way and make you sick.
Instead, a messenger strand of a cousin molecule, RNA takes on the role of messenger – mRNA – to deliver the code to your cell’s ribosomes, the organelles responsible for making proteins in your body.
For the most part, your cell’s information superhighway is a one-way street: from DNA to mRNA, to the ribosomes that make the proteins you need to make the cells that make you.
A virus is a rogue strand of RNA that injects itself down that one-way street, replaces the code carried by your body’s mRNA with instructions on how to replicate multiple viruses. This modified process produces different proteins that kill cells and make you sick.
Coronaviruses have a structure with several spike proteins, like what a corona would have, and form the characteristic “corona” you see in depictions of the virus. Due to the architecture of its peaks, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 is a betacoronavirus. Spikes are literally the keys that allow the virus to clear its way to invade your cells.
Although the virus infects you by entering your healthy cells, COVID-19 spikes prefer to attach to cells in the lower airways and lungs, leading to pneumonia.
The main defense of the organism, in addition to T lymphocytes and interferons, is through antibodies that can recognize the virus and remove it by binding to it, neutralizing it, correlating it with more viruses and making them attractive to kamikaze cells called phagocytes that eat them and die to save you from attack.
Depending on the dose of infection or the amount of virus infecting the body, the immune system can create enough antibodies to quickly identify the offending virus and overwhelm the infection, or get into a real battle for your survival. The results range from asymptomatic to death.
Vaccines have typically been inactive viruses grown in chicken eggs and then injected to allow the body to produce antibodies without infecting it so that when an infection occurs the body is ready to overwhelm the virus and save the day.
The danger, in addition to the secondary side effects and adverse reactions that can vary from causing other diseases, is that the “inactive” virus can create a real infection.
Manufacturing was a complex process that took 10 to 15 years once a weakened virus, or destroyed in a laboratory, was produced in large quantities. As viruses mutate, growing the right strain and producing it in the millions can consume months, perhaps years, of time, starting from scratch and racing to keep up with the virus’ change, each time a new strain is more prevalent.
This has been the cause of the fear and skepticism about vaccines.
This is why mRNA can be engineered faster, because it is safer from a flashback and cause of disease perspective, and because it can be produced faster:
The mRNA vaccine concept begins using the same medium as the virus, RNA. But instead of having a copy of the virus, his instructions are simply for the cell’s ribosomes to build the coronavirus spike protein, a harmless little part of the deadly virus. When introduced into the body, it acts as the virus would; but by instructing the cell to make the benign protein, it causes the immune system to produce antibodies that prepare the cell to reject the real virus when it arrives. Once the task is done, the cell dissolves the instructions.
By their very nature, mRNA vaccines can be developed in days rather than weeks, whether the president of the United States leans on researchers or the market demands it.
Since no copies of COVID-19 are injected, the likelihood of an mRNA vaccine causing a COVID-19 infection is zero. Since the cells themselves produce the exact spike protein in the COVID-19 virus through the mRNA instructions, the likelihood that the vaccine will fail to produce antibodies by not reaching the cells is greatly reduced. This is what is actually confirming the reported efficacy levels of mRNA vaccines that are now in the final approval process for emergency use.
This does not mean, however, that the vaccine is 100% safe. There remains the evaluation of the negative effects in some demographic sectors of the population or of delayed-onset reactions and consequences such as the activation of other pathological processes.
Although the manufacturing process itself does not require viruses and is a simpler synthetic method that lends itself to faster production of millions of doses, it is done by agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Medicines & Healthcare. Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK to assess potential risks.
On Wednesday, the MHRA in the UK granted a temporary authorization for use of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer and its vaccine partner BioNTech of Germany based on data showing a 95% efficacy rate and on company chemistry, Production and control data (CMC).
This constitutes the first worldwide authorization for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. To date, no mRNA vaccine of any kind has been approved in the United States, although the FDA is currently examining the application for an emergency use authorization (EUA) from Pfizer and Moderna under heavy pressure from President Donald Trump to speed up. the process.
Also the hits that will go to arms next week are Russian Sputnik V vaccine, the world’s first registered adenoviral vaccine approved by Russia with a claimed 91.4% efficacy after testing in India, Venezuela, Belarus and the United Arab Emirates. . Adenoviral vaccines use an empty viral vessel unable to reproduce to deliver a gene from part of the virus to cells in order to trigger the production of antibodies.
“Today’s emergency use authorization in the UK marks a historic moment in the fight against COVID-19,” said Albert Bourla, Pfizer president and CEO.
In addition to the EUA application to the FDA, a Pfizer statement said Wednesday that the companies “filed their final conditional marketing authorization (CA) application following ongoing requests with the European Medicines Agency (EMA). and several other regulatory agencies around the world. “
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