Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

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Ingredients list:

>6. PHARMACEUTICAL PARTICULARS

>6.1 List of excipients

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,

cholesterol,

potassium chloride,

potassium dihydrogen phosphate,

sodium chloride,

disodium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate,

sucrose,

water for injections

Source is the pdf from this UK Gov page:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulatory-approv...

I have no idea at all about vaccines, healthcare or bio chem so please correct me but. ..

The first 2 are the RNA right?

Sodium and potassium chloride are standard in table salt and saline drips right?

Sucrose and cholesterol occur naturally in humans I think (sucrose comes from breaking down fructose?).

Potassium dihydrogen phosphate is harder. No real idea what that is, but apparently they put it in gatorade?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopotassium_phosphate

Disodium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate is (I think) also used in food (condensed milk) and water softeners!

Anyone know what 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine is? Or

I'm sort of impressed it doesn't have 1001 complex chemicals.

The RNA isn't in that list. The first four are likely all components of the lipid vesicles that are used to deliver the mRNA. The rest of the list is mostly some salts and then sugar and water.

Thanks!

Any idea if thoseipid vesicles are "standard"?

In case you care, I have no objections to the vaccine. I'm too young (36 and not working in care) to get it any time soon. But I'd take it tomorrow if it were available for me.

As far as I understand, the delivery systems were a large part of the research necessary to make RNA-based drugs possible. What the RNA does inside the cell we know reasonably well (I'm simplifying a lot here ), but getting the RNA into the cells efficiently was the original problem to be solved.

So I don't think those are really standard components, there are a lot of ways to create different systems here with different properties.

As a more general comment on this concern about additives, this is typically targeted at vaccines with adjuvants. Adjuvants are designed to create a stronger immune response, the lipids here are not adjuvants and as far as I understand the mRNA vaccines don't contain any adjuvants. I don't agree with the general concerns about adjuvants (though of course each vaccine has to prove safety in the studies on their own), but they are an additive with an inherently higher risk than something more inert. The immune system is extremely complex and highly dangerous.

No, the major difference in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are in the makeup of the lipid nanoparticle. Here's an article from Moderna last year on biodegradability of the LNPs they've developed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6383180/

Thanks for this article. I can see both vaccines consider the use of PEG to be important. Still looking for the other lipid ingredients in the Moderna vaccine.

You need to be looking at the lipid ingredients that the mRNA is delivered in. Polyethylene glycol causes allergic and other reactions. The 1,2 Distearoyl... is associated with immune suppression due to destruction of lymphocyte membranes within 8 hrs of administration. Still researching the 4-hydroxybutyl....

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