Happy Friday! What could be better than the fact that it’s Friday? Oh, I know, how about the news from last night that President Biden announced every American adult will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by May 1st?! As Justin Timberlake famously said “it’s gonna be May”…who knew he was so ahead of his time?
Speaking of, vaccines are a really hot topic right now in the world of science communications. There are a lot of Americans out there with vaccine hesitancy, so us scientists and medical doctors are kicking it into overdrive to relay information about the COVID-19 vaccines and why they are so safe (and effective!).
I am always on the hunt for good SciComm (ie: science communications) content. Like many millennials, during the start of the pandemic and the quarantine that followed, I downloaded TikTok out of sheer curiosity and boredom; I found some cute dog videos and a lot of Gen-Z dances. In the mix of all of that, like a needle in a haystack, I have found some brilliant SciComm videos like the one below by @hotvickkrishna. I immediately sent it to all my science friends and got responses like “amazing!”, “brilliant!” and so on. I also sent it to my mom, who is an avid vaccine news follower and has gotten the Pfizer vaccine herself. I thought that she was going to express the same sentiment as my friends from graduate school. She texted back immediately: “What?!?! Forks? Over my head.” with the shrugging person emoji. Now, I am taking it upon myself to provide more context to this video, for her and everyone else that is a bit confused, so you too can appreciate it as much as I do and more importantly, understand how these mRNA vaccines are helping us to fight COVID-19. So watch the video and then read below to learn more! (Or read the commentary first, I don't want to tell you how to live your life).
The players:
mRNA – “the blueprint”
mRNA stands for “messenger ribonucleic acid”. mRNA is vital to our body because it is the blueprint that tells cells when and how to make specific proteins. It is known as “the messenger” because after it is made in the nucleus, it leaves and travels to a different area of a cell where it meets up with something called a ribosome to deliver this “blueprint” and tell it: “Ok friend, it’s time to make this protein!”
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are called “mRNA vaccines” because they are giving our body this very specific blueprint that will be important to defeat the virus that causes COVID-19.
The antigen – aka the forks, aka the spike protein
This video uses forks to represent a specific antigen called a “spike protein”. The virus that causes COVID-19 is called SARS-CoV-2 (pronounced like "Sars-co-vee-2") and it is surrounded by spikes that the virus depends on to get into our cells. The mRNA in the vaccine is the blueprint for this spike protein (aka the antigen).
Ribosome – “makes proteins”
The ribosome lives inside of the cell and is responsible for taking the blueprint from the mRNA, reading it, and linking together the necessary amino acids to build the spike protein. (Interestingly, because SARS-CoV-2 is itself an RNA virus, it can use our own ribosomes against us; in unvaccinated individuals, the virus can enter the cell and give our ribosomes its own unique blueprint and use the ribosome to replicate itself to spread throughout the body).
Immune system – “makes antibodies”
Now that the ribosome has read the blueprint from the mRNA in the vaccine and built the spike protein, our immune system doesn’t automatically recognize it. Because of this, it builds antibodies specific to the spike protein and elicits an immune response by activating specific cells (called T cells and B cells) from lymph nodes to recruit immune cells (called cytokines) to come and fight off the intruder. This is why some people report having a fever, a sore arm, or feeling tired after the injection; it’s all because the immune system is doing its job!
COVID-19 – the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 that stands no chance against your body's new antibodies
Now, if you come into contact with the virus that causes COVID-19 (aka SARS-CoV-2, aka the coronavirus), because your immune system was primed with the mRNA from the vaccine and has already generated the antibodies against the spike protein on the virus, these antibodies that the immune system made will block the coronavirus from entering your cells. Since the virus can’t enter your cells and hijack the ribosomes to replicate, you will be protected from COVID-19.
Now, scroll up and watch the video again. Hopefully now the “forks” make you laugh instead of making you shrug! Keep in mind, two out of the three vaccines are mRNA vaccines, like shown in the video. The other one, from Johnson and Johnson, is not an mRNA vaccine. Instead it uses something called an adenovirus and is more like the HPV vaccine and the hepatitis B vaccine. Maybe that will be a post for another time, but the take home message is: Whichever vaccine you are offered is the correct one and the one you should take! If you have any questions about the information above, don’t hesitate to comment/tweet/email me and we can talk as much science as you’ll let me.
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