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News: Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had canceled $500 million worth of grants and contracts for mRNA vaccine development.
About mRNA Vaccine
- An mRNA vaccine uses messenger RNA to provide instructions for the body’s cells to produce a harmless fragment of a pathogen.
- This approach does not introduce the actual pathogen but instead trains the immune system to recognize and fight it.
How mRNA Vaccines Work
- The mRNA is enclosed in lipid nanoparticles, which protect it and help it enter human cells.
- The vaccine is injected into a muscle, where the lipid nanoparticles fuse with cells and release the mRNA.
- Inside the cell’s cytoplasm, ribosomes read the mRNA instructions and produce the specific pathogen fragment, such as the spike protein in COVID-19.
- The produced protein fragment is displayed on the cell’s surface for the immune system to detect.
- The immune system recognizes the fragment as foreign and produces antibodies and memory cells to provide long-term protection.
- The mRNA is temporary and breaks down naturally after it has delivered its instructions, without affecting the body’s DNA.
