Can the mRNA vaccines change DNA?

[Celerity]

5. Covid-19 Vaccines Can't Alter Your DNA, Here's Why

By Victoria Forster

postdoctoral research scientist focusing on childhood cancers and new, targeted cancer therapies


https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2021/01/11/covid-19-vaccines-cant-alter-your-dna-heres-why/?sh=7b6fe6f52491

As millions of people around the world are given vaccines against Covid-19, some people are still reluctant to get the shot. There are several common reasons for this ranging from some which are more reasonable to the downright absurd (think 5G and microchips). One of the most popular circulating mistruths at the moment is that mRNA vaccines will alter your DNA, with pseudoscientific content flooding social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The good news is that they simply can’t do this, which will come as a disappointment to some who were hoping that this might be their chance for superpowers, but where did this belief in DNA-changing vaccines come from? “I think people are concerned that because this is genetic material injected into the body, could it somehow mix in with your own genetic material and change it,” said Sara Riordan, President of the National Society of Genetic Counselors.

But there are crucial differences between DNA which carries all of the information we inherited from our parents and mRNA, which the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines are made of. DNA is double-stranded, very very long and bundled up tightly together inside a part of the cell called the nucleus. mRNA is a single-stranded copy of a small part of DNA, which is routinely made in the nucleus, but then released into the main part of the cell so that the instructions it carries can be ‘read’ and made into a variety of proteins needed by the cell. “mRNA is naturally made by the body, it encodes instructions for your body's cells to make protein.

Any mRNA vaccine has the same purpose, to teach and train your body to make an immune response toward a particular pathogen, so if the pathogen gets into your body, your immune system can attack it,” said Riordan. In the case of mRNA vaccines against Covid-19, these are not made in the nucleus, rather they are injected into the arm to tell muscle cells how to make part of the viral “Spike” or “S” protein, a tiny part of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus, which on its own has none of the negative effects of the virus itself. “What’s really reassuring about these mRNA vaccines, the mRNA never even goes into the nucleus, the part of the cell contains all of your own DNA and instructions,” Riordan added.

So how do they actually work?

mRNA- based vaccines are a bit like standing in your kitchen and thinking what to make for dinner. You know you’ve got all of the ingredients to make a meal, but you don’t exactly know how to make it. So you download a recipe online, put everything together using ingredients and equipment you already have in your kitchen and eat your dinner. The vaccines are simply the recipe, injecting it into your arm is simply giving specific information to your cells and letting them read it. Your cells expertly assemble the tiny part of the Spike protein from ingredients and equipment which they already have. After this, the immune system quickly goes after the spike protein fragment, learning to build up a defense against the coronavirus, should it ever encounter it. But we don’t normally have mRNA encoding Spike protein floating around in our cells, so what happens to the mRNA itself after its injected into you and your cells make the bit of spike protein that tips off your immune system? “The mRNA from the vaccine is destroyed by the cell after the instructions are read,“ said Riordan.

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