"This is a strength of the RNA platform; it’s relatively easy to edit the sequence and generate a new vaccine that responds to mutations in the virus." Can you perhaps say: is it easier to update the genetic material in an mRNA vaccine, vs. an adenovirus-carrier vaccine like the AstraZeneca one now in use in other countries[1] (and others from Russia and China)? In either case you're using well-known techniques to create a nucleic acid sequence and then putting it in some kind of carrier or coating that gets it inside mammalian cells.
Would it be harder for Novavax (whose vaccine is the spike protein, created outside the body in moth cell cultures) to create a strain of moth cells that pump out a slightly different protein? (Because I nitpick myself: Novavax's vaccine is spike proteins attached to a stabilizer that isn't defined clearly in press coverage and is probably proprietary, and accompanied by adjuvant.)
You knew I'd comment, right?
"This is a strength of the RNA platform; it’s relatively easy to edit the sequence and generate a new vaccine that responds to mutations in the virus." Can you perhaps say: is it easier to update the genetic material in an mRNA vaccine, vs. an adenovirus-carrier vaccine like the AstraZeneca one now in use in other countries[1] (and others from Russia and China)? In either case you're using well-known techniques to create a nucleic acid sequence and then putting it in some kind of carrier or coating that gets it inside mammalian cells.
Would it be harder for Novavax (whose vaccine is the spike protein, created outside the body in moth cell cultures) to create a strain of moth cells that pump out a slightly different protein? (Because I nitpick myself: Novavax's vaccine is spike proteins attached to a stabilizer that isn't defined clearly in press coverage and is probably proprietary, and accompanied by adjuvant.)