Japan recently . This marks the next step in the evolution of mRNA vaccines, which were a leap in vaccine technology when they were first introduced in 2020. The journal Nature has , but here is the main takeaway: saRNA vaccines produce more proteins that look like the virus proteins, and do so for longer, so our immune system has a more robust and prolonged response with antibodies. Essentially, the dose of the vaccine is lower, but the antibody response is stronger and lasts longer. Nature puts it this way:
“Conventional mRNA-based COVID-19 shots consist mainly of the genetic instructions for a viral protein that are surrounded by regulatory sequences. A cell’s machinery produces the protein for as long as these instructions persist, and that protein — known as an antigen — stimulates an immune response. By contrast, saRNA jabs go a step further by integrating the genes needed for the replication and synthesis of the antigen-encoding RNA, effectively establishing a biological printing press for fabricating the vaccine inside cells (see ‘Vaccine strategies compared’).”
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