scholarly journals How Does a COVID mRNA vaccine really work?

Ubiquity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (July) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Walter Tichy
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Immune System ◽  
Messenger Rna ◽  
Spike Protein ◽  
Foreign Protein ◽  
The Real ◽  
Virus Rna ◽  
German Company ◽  
The Media ◽  
The U.S

The most potent weapon against COVID-19 is a vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA). The first of these vaccines authorized for use was developed by the German company BioNTech in cooperation with Pfizer, closely followed by the (U.S.-produced) Moderna vaccine. These vaccines send a piece of mRNA into cells of a host. The mRNA instructs the cells to produce masses of the same spike protein that also occurs on the shell of the real coronavirus. The immune system responds by learning to destroy anything showing that protein: if the real virus arrives, the immune system will attack it immediately. This much has been reported widely by the media. But important questions remain. How is mRNA actually synthesized as a transcription of the spike-producing segment of the virus' RNA? How is the selection and replication done? How does mRNA enter a host cell, and how long will it stay there? Will it produce the spike protein forever? Is it perhaps dangerous? And the biggest question of all: How does the immune system record the structure of the foreign protein, how does it recognize the invader, and how is the immune response cranked up? To answer these questions, we bring you a conversation between Ubiquity editor Walter Tichy and his daughter Dr. Evelyn Tichy, an infectious disease expert.

From Viral Vaccines to Messenger RNA Vaccines

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Immune System ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Messenger Rna ◽  
Surface Protein ◽  
Infectious Agent ◽  
Smallpox Vaccine ◽  
Small Pox ◽  
Burden Of Diseases ◽  
Enormous Success

Today, the swiftness of epidemics of infectious disease is alarming. To date vaccines have been an enormous success for not only preventing but completely eradicating a number of malicious infectious disease like small pox, rubella, mumps, measles and polio as well as decreasing the burden of diseases like tetanus, measles and diphtheria etc. Vaccination has been the hallmark of disease control for hundreds of years since it was first tested by English physician Edward Jenner in 1796 and further validated by Louis Pasteur through their work on smallpox vaccine. Vaccines function by imitating an infectious agent, and by doing so, train our bodies to respond more rapidly and effectively against them. They are either a toxin or surface protein that is identical to the offending microorganism and are made from a killed or inactivated part of the pathogen. By injecting this agent our body achieves a crash course in recognizing the agent as a threat, enabling the immune system to combat the pathogen, destroy them, and lastly, protect our bodies from a future encounter.

scholarly journals Opportunities and Challenges in the Delivery of mRNA-Based Vaccines

Pharmaceutics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abishek Wadhwa ◽  
Anas Aljabbari ◽  
Abhijeet Lokras ◽  
Camilla Foged ◽  
Aneesh Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Immune System ◽  
Messenger Rna ◽  
Genetic Diseases ◽  
Clinical Status ◽  
Therapeutic Modality ◽  
Physiological Conditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Type ◽  
Cancer Immunotherapies

In the past few years, there has been increasing focus on the use of messenger RNA (mRNA) as a new therapeutic modality. Current clinical efforts encompassing mRNA-based drugs are directed toward infectious disease vaccines, cancer immunotherapies, therapeutic protein replacement therapies, and treatment of genetic diseases. However, challenges that impede the successful translation of these molecules into drugs are that (i) mRNA is a very large molecule, (ii) it is intrinsically unstable and prone to degradation by nucleases, and (iii) it activates the immune system. Although some of these challenges have been partially solved by means of chemical modification of the mRNA, intracellular delivery of mRNA still represents a major hurdle. The clinical translation of mRNA-based therapeutics requires delivery technologies that can ensure stabilization of mRNA under physiological conditions. Here, we (i) review opportunities and challenges in the delivery of mRNA-based therapeutics with a focus on non-viral delivery systems, (ii) present the clinical status of mRNA vaccines, and (iii) highlight perspectives on the future of this promising new type of medicine.

scholarly journals From Poliomyelitis to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Reflections by a Virologist

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Erling Norrby
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Immune System ◽  
Health Economics ◽  
Antiviral Drugs ◽  
Human Host ◽  
The Media

Never before have the media focused on a single infectious disease as they have in the case of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic that started to spread globally from China at the end of 2019. The consequences of the pandemic on health, economics, and the societal conditions of isolated individuals have been discussed from a range of different perspectives. Virologists are expected to be capable of providing immediate answers to many different kinds of questions—how and under what conditions is an individual infectious, what are the relative roles of the different arms of the immune system, do reinfections occur, when will a vaccine preventing infection with the virus become available, what are the possibilities of developing antiviral drugs capable of interfering with the disease, and so on. In many cases there are no immediate answers, since virologists globally are still in the middle of researching the particular problem in the focus of interest. The only proper answer to demanding questions of this kind should be “Welcome to the workshop of virologists.” However, what needs to be emphasized is that the tools available to understand the details of the interaction of a particular virus and the various organs in an infected human host have changed dramatically during the somewhat more than a hundred years of studies of viruses.

The Real School Safety Problem

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Kupchik
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
School Safety ◽  
Zero Tolerance ◽  
Safe Schools ◽  
Original Research ◽  
School Security ◽  
Safety Problem ◽  
The Real ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The U.S

Since the 1990s, K-12 schools across the U.S. have changed in important ways in an effort to maintain safe schools. They have added police officers, surveillance cameras, zero tolerance policies, and other equipment and personnel, while increasingly relying on suspension and other punishments. Unfortunately, we have implemented these practices based on assumptions that they will be effective at maintaining safety and helping youth, not based on evidence. The Real School Safety Problem addresses this problem in two ways. One, it provides a clear discussion of what we know and what we don’t yet know about the school security and punishment practices and their effects on students and schools. Two, it offers original research that extends what we know in important ways, showing how school security and punishment affects students, their families, their schools and their communities years into the future. Schools are indeed in crisis. But the real school safety problem is not that students are either out of control or in danger. Rather, the real school safety problem is that our efforts to maintain school safety have gone too far and in the wrong directions. As a result, we over-police and punish students in a way that hurts students, their families and their communities in broad and long-lasting ways.

Fake It “Till You Make It”: Debunking Fake News in a Post-Truth America

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-133
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
American People ◽  
Fake News ◽  
News Sources ◽  
The Media ◽  
The U.S

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, attacks on the media have been relentless. “Fake news” has become a household term, and repeated attempts to break the trust between reporters and the American people have threatened the validity of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In this article, the authors trace the development of fake news and its impact on contemporary political discourse. They also outline cutting-edge pedagogies designed to assist students in critically evaluating the veracity of various news sources and social media sites.

“The Real Nature and Spirit of Our Lives”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Porterfield
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
The Real ◽  
Real Nature ◽  
Republican Liberty ◽  
The U.S

Proponents of social evolution blurred boundaries between commerce and Christianity after the Civil War, championing Christian work as a means to economic growth, republican liberty, and national prosperity. Meanwhile, workers invoked Christ to condemn patronizing attitudes toward labor, and by organizing labor unions to hold capitalists accountable to Pauline ideals of social membership. Influenced by organic theories of social organization that traced modern corporations to medieval institutions, U.S. courts began recognizing corporations as natural persons protected by rights guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which had originally be crafted to protect the rights of African Americans.

scholarly journals Europe Abhors Donald Trump: The Opinion on the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections and Their Candidates in the European Newspapers

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110055
Author(s):  
Marçal Sintes-Olivella ◽  
Pere Franch ◽  
Elena Yeste-Piquer ◽  
Klaus Zilles
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Election Campaign ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
White House ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
European Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Common ◽  
The U.S

What is the opinion held by the European press on the U.S. election campaign and the candidates running for president? What are the predominant issues that attract the attention of European print media? Does Europe detest Donald Trump? The objective of the present study is to analyze the perception European commentators had of the 2020 race for the White House. The media, the audience, and European governments were captivated more than ever before by how the U.S. election campaign unfolded, fixing their gaze on the contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Through a combined quantitative and qualitative methodology, a combination of content analysis and the application of framing theory (hitherto scarcely applied to opinion pieces), our research centers on exploring the views, opinions, and analyses published in eight leading newspapers from four European countries (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom) as expressed in their editorials and opinion articles. This study observes how the televised presidential debates were commented on, interpreted, and assessed by commentators from the eight newspapers we selected. The goal was to identify the common issues and frames that affected European public opinion on the U.S. presidential campaign and the aspirants to the White House.

Party Messaging in the U.S. House of Representatives

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110297
Author(s):  
Tyler Hughes ◽  
Gregory Koger
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
Legislative Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
Party Members ◽  
The U.S

Both Congressional parties compete to promote their own reputations while damaging the opposition party’s brand. This behavior affects both policy-making agendas and the party members’ communications with the media and constituents. While there has been ample study of partisan influence on legislative agenda-setting and roll call voting behavior, much less is known about the parties’ efforts to shape the public debate. This paper analyzes two strategic decisions of parties: the timing of collective efforts to influence the public policy debate and the substantive content of these “party messaging” events. These dynamics are analyzed using a unique dataset of 50,195 one-minute speeches delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 2016. We find a pattern of strategic matching—both parties are more likely to engage in concurrent messaging efforts, often on the same issue.

Associations Between Exposure to The Real Cost Campaign, Pro-Tobacco Advertisements, and Tobacco Use Among Youth in the U.S.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise M. Stevens ◽  
Emily T. Hébert ◽  
Brittney Keller-Hamilton ◽  
Summer G. Frank-Pearce ◽  
Alayna P. Tackett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tobacco Use ◽  
The Real ◽  
Real Cost ◽  
The U.S
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