Comment by bitwize

I was explaining the mRNA vaccines to my dad who has... a tough time getting them, and the analogy I used was that ribosomes are like tiny 3D printers which print whatever is encoded in mRNA. Normally these are proteins and structures for your own body whose specs are copied over from DNA, but when the mRNA vaccine enters the cell the ribosomes 3D-print a single COVID spike, which then triggers an immune response.