• intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    So it’s pretty established science that RNA doesn’t become part of your genome right? That’s just not a thing that happens, which is why we don’t have to worry about mRNA vaccines altering our genomes.

    Is that the scientific consensus?

    • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Yes, mRNA does not enter your cell nucleus. And on the other hand, DNA doesn’t leave the cell nucleus. They don’t ever meet in person.

      In theory, proteins could read that mRNA, transcribe it into DNA and build it into your DNA. If you find a way to make them do this you can go and collect your Nobel Prize!

      Seriously, when humans are able to do that it would mean we had control over our genome. If that was something currently possible, the Corona vaccine would be the most boring application.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        But what about reverse transcriptase? Isn’t that a protein that does exactly that, which we’ve known about for decades? Isn’t that what RNA retroviruses use to encode their RNA genome into the host genome?

        What’s going on? I thought you just said the scientific consensus was that RNA doesn’t get encoded into the DNA genome, that it was scientific consensus?

        Should I be taking this as evidence that people declaring a scientific consensus are arrogant, sloppy, and dangerous in their lack of consideration of all the angles?

        Should I really get a nobel prize for pointing out a fact in every high school biology textbook?

        • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Perhaps you should read again what I wrote. I wrote:

          They never meet in person

          The problem with people like you is that you don’t understand enough to get why the mRNA of the vaccine suddenly and “on it’s own” being transcribed into DNA very likely* isn’t an issue. You would need to read a bit more than just high school biology textbooks.

          But if you stumble upon it without a deeper understanding you get panicky because you now believe that there is a chance of that happening.

          *Yes, there is also a chance of a chimpanzees writing the entire encyclopedia of Brockhaus by randomly hitting around on a keyboard.

          For this reason I added: if you discover how we can make proteins do that you would get a Nobel prize.

          There is a lot research trying to modify the DNA with means like CRISPR and other techniques that hopefully will allow us to integrate vaccines (and other stuff) into the DNA. But that costs a lot of effort and it doesn’t just happen randomly just because there is mRNA and RNA transcriptase.

          Even with latest efforts, this only works in vitro. Means you take single cells, change something in the structure of the mRNA and then add certain proteins and then these can be transcribed into the DNA of specific cells.

          Even when you imagine you go full tinhead circle and Invision Big Pharma to add these components (which would be dumb on their part) somehow in a way that it works in your cells, this would only produce DNA that is there until the cell divides. Because that still doesn’t integrate the change into your chromosome, it’s just the transcription process into DNA.

          You would need to make some additional steps to add it into your chromosomes. And even that’s not the end of it! Because you would also need to make it in a way that your immune system doesn’t immediately destroy these cells.

          I hope this makes it more clear, sorry if it is not well written since English isn’t my native language. If you want to, I can try and find some sources in English for you to read on this. But it’s really not something you can get behind in just reading a few papers.