In the light of the current pandemic, there is a need for an effective and safe vaccine. One of the emerging technologies which recently gained traction is using messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines as a tool to train our immune systems to fight pathogens [1]. This type of vaccine has not been introduced into any market yet. There are concerns that mRNA from a vaccine, being chemically similar to DNA, could potentially integrate with our genome. The issue has been voiced, for instance, on Facebook forums of vaccine educational platforms such as the Polish “Szczepimy, bo myślimy” (“We vaccinate because we think”). Although it is reasonable to speculate about worst-case scenarios, it is rather impossible for this process to occur with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine or in any other vaccines containing RNA. The following paragraphs will shed some light on this technology and will attempt to explain why it is highly unlikely that this kind of vaccine could “mess up our genome”.

mRNA-based therapies are a promising alternative to standard vaccination. They have been tested as versatile cancer immunotherapies, but also against several infectious agents, such as influenza and zika [2]. mRNA vaccines can potentially not only reduce safety risks (as opposed to whole-cell vaccines), increase their relative efficacy (in comparison to more modern vaccines with purified antigens), but also decrease the cost and time of manufacturing [3]. Multiple biotech and pharmaceutical companies are heavily investing in mRNA vaccine development. Due to the aforementioned advantages, with an emphasis on the production time, it is one of the potential forms of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. However, it’s worth mentioning that it would be the first publicly available vaccine of this type against a pathogen. Thus, it’s expected that this approach may be met with some doubt from the public.

All living organisms utilize mRNA. mRNA transfers the information about a protein from DNA and can be compared to USB-stick. This information in mRNA is then used by a complex cellular machinery to forge a protein [4]. mRNA vaccines use exactly this property of natural mRNAs to deliver the information of what protein to create in our cells. mRNA vaccines are designed to help create a specific protein which is, in turn, utilized by our organisms to teach our immune systems how to fight a pathogen [3]. There are fears among some people that the mRNA from vaccines could change our genetic make-up. It’s believed that it could do that by incorporation into our DNA because of the chemical similarity between the two [5]. The simplest response to that is as follows: it can’t [2]. The DNA is exclusively localized in a separate cellular compartment called the nucleus, impermeable for most compounds [6]. An mRNA vaccine is only delivered to the part of the cell outside the nucleus. Thus, it doesn’t have any contact with our DNA.