Moderna New Crown Vaccine mRNA Sequence “Open Sourced” by Stanford University, Can You Make Your Own Formula?
As first reported by technology news site Motherboard, scientists at Stanford University have “open sourced” Moderna’s new crown vaccine mRNA sequence on GitHub after saving the vaccine that should have been thrown in the trash and reverse engineering it. sequences on GitHub.
In a 4-page document, the scientists explain why they did this and include the full BioNTech / Pfizer, Moderna Neocrown vaccine mRNA sequence at the end of the document. (Github direct link: https://github.com/NAalytics/Assemblies-of-putative-SARS-CoV2-spike-encoding-mRNA-sequences-for-vaccines-BNT-162b2- and-mRNA-1273 )
The companies certainly don’t want “their formula” to get out, but only the sequence is publicly available.
This is not the first time that a new crown vaccine has been reverse engineered and shared on the web. Late last year, PowerDNS founder Bert Hubert used BioNTech / Pfizer’s publicly available information to crack its mRNA sequence.
“It’s like baking a complex cake and only knowing which base ingredients to use at this point, but no specific guidance on quantities or cooking methods.” Stuart Turville, an associate professor of immunology and pathology at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said in an interview with the press.
Figure | Moderna’s stock price in the last 5 days (Source: Google)
After the announcement, Moderna’s share price dropped in response. However, after two days of fermentation, the stock price started to recover again.
Helping to rule out false positives
Some experts say the publicly available sequences will help researchers around the world monitor samples earlier when they can tell whether they are studying the sequence of a new coronavirus or the sequence of a vaccine for the virus, which is likely to result in false positives.
Stuart Turville commented that the choice to publish the sequences on Github was “in some ways a smart” choice.
“In the diagnostic process, it’s possible for a new coronavirus to come from the vaccine, or to enter through the mouth or nose.” That is, the presence of a large number of such RNAs could produce a false positive in determining whether it is due to treatment or to the transmission process.
“So with the knowledge of this sequence, if there is a false positive, you can rule out whether the RNA from the vaccine is the source of contamination.”
Stuart Turville believes that knowing these sequences does not necessarily produce a vaccine. “How can you generate a sufficient amount of sequence and then bind it to lipid nanoparticles to produce a vaccine is where the real magic lies.”
(Credit: U.S. Navy Photo by Elaine Heirigs)
He said he was more concerned about having a new vaccine for the new coronavirus mutation than that.
Scientists: We didn’t “reverse engineer” it
There are 11 Stanford scientists involved in this work, from the departments of pathology, genetics, pediatrics and medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Medical Center.
They explain their initial work on Github, saying that RNA vaccines have emerged as a key tool to help us address the challenges posed by the current new crown epidemic, as well as other public health and medical issues.
They believe that two mRNA vaccines have made a great contribution to the world and that the release of RNA sequences will continue to benefit humanity. “While anyone interested can data mine and filter these sequences later, obtaining them as soon as possible could have greater economies of scale and educational value.”
Scientists know little about the details of Moderna’s samples. In the paper, they say, “The mRNA we used in the study came from leftover vaccine that remained in the vaccine vials after injection, and these leftover vaccines were either used in the study with FDA approval or will be discarded.”
They also added that the project did not waste vaccine material or disguise a reduction in the dose that should have been administered to the public. “Think of the milk that is still stuck to the wall of the milk carton after you drink it; there is no use for the residue. But if we sequenced it, that would give us a full picture of the cow’s genome.”
Figure | Comparison of the ingredients of the two vaccines (Source: Jason Neubert’s blog)
So the scientists applied to the FDA for permission to keep the empty vials, including those that might be discarded at Stanford and VA vaccination sites.
Technically, they did not “reverse engineer” the vaccine, according to corresponding authors Andrew Fire and Massa Shoura.
“We did not reverse-engineer the vaccine. We published putative sequences of two synthetic RNA molecules that have become very common in medicine and human biology this year,” they responded in an emailed inquiry in response to Motherboard, “and with the introduction of the vaccine, these sequences have begun to appear in many different investigational and diagnostic studies. Knowing these sequences will help distinguish them from other mRNAs when analyzing future biomedical data.”
The scientists claim that they had contacted Moderna for advice prior to “open source” but received no response. “A few weeks ago, we contacted Moderna and indicated that we would like to publish the sequences in a publication and asked if there was anything we should mention… … There has been no response or objection from them, so we infer that everyone is busy with important work.”
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