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Replies to post #1760 on About StemCells, Biomedicine, Diet Impact, Mental
The messenger RNA (mRNA) from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is able to enter human liver cells and is converted into DNA, according to Swedish researchers at Lund University.
The researchers found that when the mRNA vaccine enters the human liver cells, it triggers the cell’s DNA, which is inside the nucleus, to increase the production of the LINE-1 gene expression to make mRNA.
The mRNA then leaves the nucleus and enters the cell’s cytoplasm where it translates into LINE-1 protein. A segment of the protein called the open reading frame-1, or ORF-1, then goes back into the nucleus where it attaches to the vaccine’s mRNA and reverse transcribes into spike DNA.
Reverse transcription is when DNA is made from RNA, whereas the normal transcription process involves a portion of the DNA serving as a template to make an mRNA molecule inside the nucleus.
“In this study we present evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 is able to enter the human liver cell line Huh7 in vitro,” the researchers wrote in the study, published in Current Issues of Molecular Biology. “BNT162b2 mRNA is reverse transcribed intracellularly into DNA as fast as 6 [hours] after BNT162b2 exposure.”
BNT162b2 is another name for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine that is marketed under the brand name Comirnaty.
The whole process occurred rapidly within six hours. The vaccine’s mRNA converting into DNA and being found inside the cell’s nucleus is something that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said would not happen.
“The genetic material delivered by mRNA vaccines never enters the nucleus of your cells,” the CDC said on its web page titled “Myths and Facts about COVID-19 Vaccines.”
Dr. Peter McCullough, an internist, cardiologist, and epidemiologist, wrote on Twitter that the Swedish study’s findings have “enormous implications of permanent chromosomal change and long-term constitutive spike synthesis driving the pathogenesis of a whole new genre of chronic disease.”
Whether the findings of the study will occur in living organisms or if the DNA converted from the vaccine’s mRNA will integrate with the cell’s genome is unknown. The authors said more investigations are needed, including in whole living organisms such as animals, to better understand the potential effects of the mRNA vaccine.
“At this stage, we do not know if DNA reverse transcribed from BNT162b2 is integrated into the cell genome. Further studies are needed to demonstrate the effect of BNT162b2 on genomic integrity, including whole genome sequencing of cells exposed to BNT162b2, as well as tissues from human subjects who received BNT162b2 vaccination,” the authors said.
Stefan Oelrich, a member of the Board of Management of Bayer and head of the Pharmaceuticals Division, gave a speech at the World Health Summit focused on biotechnological innovation. He said his company is “really taking that leap … in cell and gene therapy.”
“Ultimately, the mRNA vaccines are an example for that cell and gene therapy,” Oelrich said at the event’s opening in Berlin.
“I always like to say, if we had surveyed two years ago in the public—‘would you be willing to take gene or cell therapy and inject it into your body?’—we probably would have had a 95 percent refusal rate,” he added.
The pandemic has given the pharmaceutical industry innovation opportunities that may have not been possible before, Oelrich said.
“I think this pandemic has also opened many people’s eyes to innovation in the way that was maybe not possible before,” the Bayer executive said. “But it’s not just the industry that has to innovate, it’s across all the value chains starting with the academia and university, and again, the World Health Summit.”
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