Thread by @DrEricDing

AMAZING—The Pfizer / BioNTech mRNA #COVID19 vaccine’s RNA is 4284 characters long, so it would fit in a bunch of tweets. And just one 30 microgram dose holds 13 BILLION copies of it. Someone reverse engineered the source code—article is a stunning read.
berthub.eu/articles/posts…

2) Wow, BioNTech (or @kkariko ?) really did an amazing job with the engineering. If they use “uracil” or “U”, our immune system would attack the vaccine’s RNA. But if psi is used instead of U, then immune system ignores it, but the cell’s ribosomes still reads it as a U!!!

3) And in case you’re wondering, viruses cannot replicate and use the “psi” artificial trick to evade immunity. It’s a man made chemical — biology has no way to make it, and viruses use host biology only. So we are safe.

4) Also in order to program the mRNA to be made into a protein ASAP, they engineered the starting location - the UTR region - with a special version that tells the cells to *MAKE ME RIGHT NOW AND MAKE LOTS OF ME*!

5) Also, mRNA vaccine must be programmed to tell our cells to “Spit out” spike protein out of cell, instead of keeping the spike protein inside cell or attached to cell surface (like a receptor). Hence we code the mRNA to tell our cell’s mail sorting system to 🏷 it to spit out.

6) Another trick to make more spike protein.... notice vaccine and virus do have differences — there are more G’s and C’s often substituted in the vaccine instead of U’s sometime (psi is a U to keep simple). But UUU & UUC code the same amino acid—but using C/G makes more protein!

7) Okay this next part is tricky... the spike protein from the vaccine is NOT standing up on top of a virus surface (because no virus), but free floating. This is a problem because the spike protein would “collapse” into a different shape that isn’t like the virus spike anymore.

8) So how did scientists solve that spike protein collapsing problem above? Well they forced in two PROLINE amino acids to act as a “splint” and force the vaccine-made spike protein to keep its proper shape as it would appear on a real virus. Boom!!! HACKED! Suck that virus.

9) Forgot to mention, the mRNA vaccine starts with a “cap” that deceives the cell to think the RNA came from the nucleus (normal origin) instead of from a synthetic vaccine source. Artificially add the cap on and the cell will start using the code. Another code hack.

10) They also engineered the 3’ (end) with a special genetic code in the 3’ UTR region to increase RNA stability and expression of RNA for making more proteins. Goal of the RNA code is always *make more spike protein damnit*.

11) I’m skipping some details to get to the end —the “poly AAAAAAAAA” tail. The more letter A’s, the more times the mRNA can be translated (read by ribosome to make more protein) over and over again without being degraded. How many did they slam into the end? 100 baby!!! Woo!

12) And another thing was they used a special linker GCAUAUGACU code in middle of all the A’s to again enhance the transcribing and polymerase. Another scientist genetic hack.

13) Altogether, it’s a masterful piece of scientific engineering that took decades to perfect. Lots of great biology knowledge needed to create this #COVID19 mRNA vaccine.

(Hat tip to @powerdns_bert for the article).

Science saves lives. Maybe it’s time to fund more research!!

14) Lots of questions about mutations and adapting mRNA vaccines to the new variants - YES it can be done and done pretty quickly. 6 weeks is all it takes, says BioNTech. But unclear the regulatory testing requirements for new version. google.com/amp/s/m.econom…