Dr. Seheult: So, if you think about mRNA vaccines, it's like an envelope with a message in it. And that message is going to tell the cell what kind of proteins to make. This is exactly what happens, by the way, when you get a viral infection. When you get Coronavirus or any other Coronavirus, or any other RNA virus that comes along is that virus fuses with your cell, whether it's in the cells in your nasal mucosa or anywhere else. And it basically tells those cells to make foreign proteins. And so, in that sense, this is no different. We're just doing it in a way that doesn't cause more viruses to be made. When you get infected with a virus, the virus tells the cells to make more of everything. Make more RNA, make more viral proteins, so your cell can make more virus. In this sense, the mRNA vaccine is only telling your cell to make a portion of the protein which we want the immune system to recognize so that if it ever comes around again, the immune system is ready to attack it and to prevent it from invading your body. So in that sense, this is, sort of, a dead-end virus that we're putting in. But it's not even that, it's not even a virus. It's just a portion of the mRNA.

So what about mRNA? mRNA is in the cytoplasm of the cell. It's not in the nucleus of the cell. And if you can imagine, you know, we had a professor from San Diego, Dr. Crotty, who, I love this analogy, it's like a post-it note, mRNAs are like post-it notes. They're here today, maybe a few days later, they're gone. You crumple it up and you throw it away. They are not like your marriage certificate or your social security card that you put away in a filing cabinet that you never take out. It's like the original. That's like your DNA. That's like in the nucleus. So that is not what an mRNA is. mRNA is like your post-it notes that you post in your room and they're here today and gone tomorrow.

So there's really not a danger that this mRNA is going to hang around. And even if it were to hang around, the purpose of the immune system is to find these cells with this foreign mRNA in it because it makes proteins that are foreign and to destroy those cells. That's why you get an immunogenic response when you get the flu vaccine or in this case, the mRNA vaccine, you get pain at the site, you get a little bit of a fever, perhaps, you might have some muscle aches, body aches, it'll feel like you actually have a viral infection because that's your interferon that's responding to it. That's your adaptive immune system, eventually, that's responding to it.

So that would explain Moderna's vaccine and also Pfizer's vaccine.