Since January 2020, life in the US has revolved around the “coronavirus” AKA COVID-19. While our lives have been greatly altered after the emergence of this virus, there still seems to be a lack of basic knowledge surrounding COVID-19 and just what exactly it is. Thus, I’m hoping after reading this article, you’ll leave with a bit of an understanding about the basics of COVID-19.
Before we can understand more about COVID-19, we need to first learn a little about viruses. Viruses are tiny infectious agents (even smaller than bacteria), which need to be inside of living cells to replicate. Viruses contain 2 major parts which make them whole: their capsid and their genetic material. The viral capsid is the outside shell of the virus. The main purpose of this shell is to protect the genetic material within it. The shell is usually coated with various proteins on its surface which are used to interact with and invade their target cells. Once inside their target cells, the virus uses its genetic material to divide and grow. But the virus cannot do this alone, it actually takes over the machinery and systems of the target cell and uses them to help it replicate and grow. Once mature viruses are made, they leave the cell to infect other cells. Infected cells basically become little virus factories manufacturing large quantities of viruses. This is basically how the “coronavirus” infects each one of us as well.
Now that we have a little background on viruses in general, lets circle back to COVID-19. To start off, the name “coronavirus” is the name of a group of viruses which cause a wide range of diseases. Coronaviruses are quite common, some cause very minor infections like the common cold.But the virus we think of when hearing the term “coronavirus” is actually named SARS-CoV 2, which stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2. This virus is a close relative of the infectious SARS virus, thus the name SARS-CoV 2. The term COVID-19 is the name for the disease caused by SARS-CoV 2. The term COVID-19 specifically stands for “coronavirus disease 2019”.So, to sum this up, SARS-CoV 2 is the virus which causes the disease COVID-19 and is part of a group of viruses called coronaviruses. To make things easier to understand, I will refer to the virus as COVID-19 for the rest of the article. Now let’s talk about the COVID-19 and vaccines. You may be hearing a lot on the news about the spike protein of COVID-19. The spike protein is extremely important to the virus, as it is what the virus uses to stick onto our cells. Once it sticks onto the surface of our cells and gets in, it hijacks it and takes it over like other viruses do. Thus, scientists developed a vaccine which helps our body target this important spike protein of COVID-19.Normally, when you hear the word “vaccine” you probably think you are being injected with a weaker or dead version of the virus. While this is one form of vaccines, the COVID-19 vaccine is NOT this. I cannot stress this enough, when you are vaccinated against COVID-19,there is absolutely no virus being injected in you. The COVID-19 vaccine is something called a synthetic mRNA vaccine. These new types of vaccines are very interesting because rather than injecting a patient with a weaker version of the virus, the patient is injected with a synthetic mRNA.
Before we go any further, let’s get a better understanding of mRNAs. To understand mRNAs, you first need to understand how proteins are made inside your cells. In your cells you have DNA, which are the blueprints to all the proteins in your cells. When your cell wants to make new proteins, it reads your DNA and then sends the blueprints of the specific protein it wants to make to your cellular protein factories (these are called ribosomes). Your cells usemRNA to send these blueprints from your DNA to the ribosomes. Fittingly enough the m in mRNA stands for messenger. Thus, mRNAs are basically little postmen which take specific blueprints on how to make specific proteins from your DNA and delivers them to your ribosomes (protein factories).
Now that we understand what mRNAs are, lets get back to the COVID-19 vaccine. These vaccines are synthetic mRNAs made by scientists in the lab. These mRNAs are the blueprints of the COVID-19 spike protein. When we are injected with a COVID-19 vaccination, all we are doing is giving our cells the blueprints to the COVID-19 spike protein. They can then take these blueprints and learn how to build antibodies against this spike protein. These antibodies can then target the spike protein of COVID-19 and stop the virus from attaching to our cells.
I hope after reading this, you have a better understanding of COVID-19 and the vaccines developed to help fight it. Stay safe everyone!
(Cody Kempen received his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. He is currently a PhD Candidate in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics with a focus in mucosal immunology at Stony Brook University. He can be reached at cody.kempen32@gmail.com)