One never knows what basic research will pay off. I remember the 1982 Nobel Prize was for discovering prostaglandins, but that was only possible because in the 19th century the Prussian government was paying some scientist to look up mole assholes and measure their prostate glands to look for seasonable variance. I'm not going to ask what prior research led to that project. I don't want to know.
Great overview of the bench-to-bedside process leading up to current vaccines. I'd argue, however, that even if we didn't have SARS, MERS, etc results to inform SARS-CoV2 research, the mRNA platform would have still drastically cut down on time to first dose. Once you know the viral genome, you can model the antigen (albeit may not perfectly), and then develop the vaccine.
Also, if you're interested in learning more about mutations (i.e. antigenic shift and antigenic drift), here's a shameless plug for my substack:
Thanks for explaining how the COVID vaccine was really not a "rushed" job and how antigens work in plain language! I'm more comfortable getting the vaccine now when it's my turn.
One never knows what basic research will pay off. I remember the 1982 Nobel Prize was for discovering prostaglandins, but that was only possible because in the 19th century the Prussian government was paying some scientist to look up mole assholes and measure their prostate glands to look for seasonable variance. I'm not going to ask what prior research led to that project. I don't want to know.
Great overview of the bench-to-bedside process leading up to current vaccines. I'd argue, however, that even if we didn't have SARS, MERS, etc results to inform SARS-CoV2 research, the mRNA platform would have still drastically cut down on time to first dose. Once you know the viral genome, you can model the antigen (albeit may not perfectly), and then develop the vaccine.
Also, if you're interested in learning more about mutations (i.e. antigenic shift and antigenic drift), here's a shameless plug for my substack:
https://amrchairmed.substack.com/p/sars-cov2-mutations?r=4raep&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy
Thanks for explaining how the COVID vaccine was really not a "rushed" job and how antigens work in plain language! I'm more comfortable getting the vaccine now when it's my turn.