Undergraduate-level biology students' application of central dogma to understand COVID mRNA vaccines.

ABSTRACT: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has underscored the importance of mRNA vaccines. The mechanism for how such vaccines work is related to the core biology topic of the central dogma, which students often misunderstand despite its importance. Therefore, we wanted to know whether students can apply their biology knowledge of central dogma to the real-world issue of how mRNA COVID vaccines work. Accordingly, we asked college biology students of different expertise levels how the COVID vaccine worked. Later, we cued them by telling them the vaccine contains mRNA and asked them what the mRNA does. We used thematic analysis to find common ideas in their responses. In the uncued condition, fewer than half of the students used central dogma-related ideas to explain what was in the v

SUBMITTER: Shahoy S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11044620 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature