Vaccine nanoparticles?

 

So,

This is the answer I get from my son who is an research chemist at Gilead, working on a new class of HIV medications.

The question was:

Hey,

Organic Chemist Nerd.

My FB followers are asking about the ingredients of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Here is the list. What are these first three compounds?

ALC-0315 = ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate

ALC-0159 = 2-[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide

1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine

Mom.

Organic Chemist Nerd's answer:

They are lipids that have been carefully formulated to enable formation of nanoparticles. Basically the viral mRNA is encapsulated in small bubbles of lipids or micelles much like the cells in the body except much smaller. The lipid nanoparticles associate with the lipid bilayer of human cells and help deliver the mRNA inside. The issue as you might imagine is that there is not much stopping the lipid nanoparticles from associating with themselves and aggregating into a large particle which would only be able to deliver mRNA to one cell in the body and wouldn’t be very effective. Looking more closely, the first component is a fatty acid connected to a positively charged group that can bind to the negatively charged mRNA and keep it inside the nanoparticle. The second one is just a polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymer ligated to the amide of a fatty acid. Very common in drug formulation to moderate solubility. The third component is phospholipid: steric acid + glycerol + phosphate. Literally what human cell membranes are made of. If I had to guess I’d say that the length of the PEG polymer (2000) and the ratio between the three components have been carefully chosen to enable formation of nanoparticles around the mRNA and prevent aggregation will still maintaining solubility in the medium and the ability to associate with human cell membranes to deliver the mRNA inside.

Hope this helps!

Yep. There are science nerds all around me. TAKE HOME MESSAGE; there are millions and millions of smart people whose life focus is science. They don't care about the politics. They may not even be focused on whether you take a vaccine or not. Their focus is to advance science for progress and for the good of humankind. I am leaving my life in their hands.

Vaccines arriving in Canada TODAY!

Anne-Marie

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And, last promotion for this event. We are hosting our third webinar on December 14th.

Our special guest is Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of Linamar, Guelph and appointee to the Ontario COVID- 19 Vaccine Distribution Task Force.

Register at this link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_zz_u8CkUQ36IuNdLP9-XBw

We will have time to answer many vaccine questions and discuss how to cope with the upcoming, very different Christmas season.

Anne-Marie

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For non-Facebook users, you can find this post here:

https://braceletofhope.blogspot.com/