Stanford Scientists Post mRNA Sequence for Moderna Vaccine on Github [View all]

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
the least great american whale
@Boringstein
this rules and is nothing short of heroic

Stanford Scientists Post mRNA Sequence for Moderna Vaccine on Github
A group of Stanford researchers has hacked Moderna’s messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine for the novel coronavirus, Motherboard first reported on Monday, and published its entire genetic sequence on the...
gizmodo.com
5:39 PM · Mar 29, 2021

https://gizmodo.com/stanford-scientists-post-entire-mrna-sequence-for-moder-1846576268

A group of Stanford researchers has hacked Moderna’s messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine for the novel coronavirus, Motherboard first reported on Monday, and published its entire genetic sequence on the open-source code repository Github.

The mRNA vaccines work by delivering genetic information that allows the body’s own cells to produce a viral protein—such as a harmless, engineered version of the spike protein that the coronavirus uses to break its way into the body’s cells. When the body subsequently produces that protein, the immune system rapidly mobilizes to fight it, conducting a sort of live-fire training exercise that prepares it to fight the actual coronavirus; the actual mRNA delivered by the vaccine quickly disintegrates, but the antibodies stick around as a garrison against future infection. Per the MIT News Office, this allows for much easier and faster production than prior generations of vaccines relying on manufacturing the proteins under laboratory conditions. The mRNA sequence more or less serves as a sort of source code for the vaccine.

The documents the Stanford team published on Github include two pages of explanation and two pages containing the entire mRNA sequence for Moderna’s vaccine. Researchers wrote in the report that although Moderna’s mRNA has ended up in a large swathe of the population, scientists and medical personnel don’t have access to the actual genetic sequences involved.

“With the rollout of vaccines for COVID-19, these synthetic mRNAs have become broadly distributed RNA species in numerous human populations,” the researchers wrote. “Despite their ubiquity, sequences are not always available for such RNAs... Sharing of sequence information for broadly used therapeutics has the benefit of allowing any researchers or clinicians using sequencing approaches to rapidly identify such sequences as therapeutic-derived rather than host or infectious in origin.”

*snip*