COVID-19 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines train the body to produce proteins on their cells that mimic the spike proteins from the coronavirus, prompting the body to produce antibodies to defend itself from them. John F. Bonamo, M.D., MS, FACOG, FACPE, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical and Quality Officer, RWJBarnabas Health, explains more about how mRNA vaccines work in this video.
TRANSCRIPT:
So, the vaccines that people are used to are when we took a germ and made the germs somewhat inactive and we would give that germ back to a patient to stimulate their immune system. And so very often, not very often, but there
were times when that could go awry, and people get much sicker from the vaccine than we would hope. Now we have something called a messenger RNA vaccine.
What scientists have done is that they have taken the genetic material from the virus and have programmed a protein to mimic what the virus does in your system.
And there's something called a spike protein on the virus.
When you see pictures of virus it's often depicted as a ball with all these spikes coming off of it.
Those are called spike proteins and what the scientists have done is they have coated a protein to attack those spike proteins.
And so when they put that protein into our body, our body gets programmed to attack spike protein.
And when the virus actually does come to a person, the body now has these proteins in it to attack the virus. It's very complicated, it's really Star Wars technology and science, but it's fascinating that we have learned to teach the body to attack those spike proteins.