How Do mRNA Vaccines Work?
Scientists working today are usually a part of a team, and many advancements and discoveries that are now made don t trace neatly back to a single person. The vaccines that have been developed in record time for COVID-19 are examples of that; researchers working together, building on previous efforts, have engineered these desperately needed medicines.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that the FDA has approved for use are both mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines.
Since our immune system has a memory, it can (usually) fight a pathogen more effectively when it encounters that pathogen for a second time. So vaccines are used to teach your immune system about an infection, giving it the first exposure, without making the body sick. Many traditional vaccines use inactivated or weakened forms of pathogens to trigger an immune response and create the immunological memory of the infection. But mRNA vaccines work in a different way.