The 7 Steps October
1. CONTEXT
Mindmap
anything you
know about thetopic, including
vocabulary. Do
some research
online to help.

Moderna
Listening Questions 1
1. What medical event boosted the profile of pharmaceutical companies in2020 and why?
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2. QUESTIONS

2. What type of company is Moderna and where was it founded?
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3. What new technology did Moderna use to create new products?

Read the listening
questions tocheck yourunderstanding.
Look up any new
vocabulary.

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4. What was Operation Warp Speed and how much money was allocated toModerna?
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5. When was the Moderna vaccine approved in the U.S. and Canada?
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Listening Questions 2

3. LISTEN

1. What is mRNA technology?
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2. How do older versions of vaccines work?

Listen and answer
the questions
using fullsentences. Circle
the number oftimes and % you
understood.

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3. How does mRNA achieve an immune response?

1

Listening 1
2 3 4

5%%%

1

Listening 2
2 3 45%%%%%%%.
4. What is the main benefit of mRNA vaccines and what could be the impactof this?
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5. What are two other diseases mRNA vaccines are being researched for?
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Discussion Questions
1. What medical technology or medicines have had the biggest
impact on our society?
2. What are some new medical breakthroughs you hope to see inyour lifetime?

4. CHECK ANSWERS

TRANSCRIPT 1
Pharmaceutical companies do not often appear in the limelight, but the emergence of Covid-19
in 2020 and the rush for a vaccine put them at the center of global attention. Many of the major
players in the pharmaceutical world attempted to bring a new vaccine to market but one of thenewer players on the scene was the previously little-known company Moderna.

Read through thetranscript andunderline theanswers. Checkthem against yourown answers.

Moderna is a biotechnology and pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The American company was formed to take advantage of new mRNA technologies in thedevelopment of vaccines. Over the course of the company’s short history, they experimented
with a number of different treatments and therapies, but their big break came with the
emergence of Covid-19 and the subsequent race to create a vaccine.

5. CHECK VOCABULARY
Read thetranscript andcircle any new
vocabulary you
find. Look themup and add themto your list.

MATCH THE ANTONYMS BY DRAWING LINES BELOW:

6. READ ALOUD

Read thetranscript aloudat least 5 times,
focusing on
intonation andpronunciation.

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The technology underpinning both the Moderna and Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine is a relatively
new technique known as mRNA. Based largely on the research of Hungarian scientist Katalin
Kariko and her collaborators, the technology is a novel way to teach the human body how todefend itself from viral infections.
Traditional vaccines worked by introducing an inactive or weakened version of a germ to thebody. The immune system then learned to recognize and fight it if the more active form of thegerm made its way into the body. mRNA works differently to achieve a similar result. Instead ofintroducing a weaker or dead version of a pathogen, the new vaccines work by teaching ourcells how to make a protein, or in some cases just a piece of protein. This can result in animmune response from the body that protects from future infection of the actual virus.

Say the transcript
aloud at the sametime as the audio
without reading
it. Circle how
many times
below.

22Experiment

TRANSCRIPT 2

7. SHADOWING

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Under Operation Warp Speed, a partnership with the US Government to develop a Covid-19
vaccine, the company received $483 million to help bring their vaccine to market. By December
2020, the vaccine had been approved in the U.S. and Canada, and mRNA technology’s bigdebut had arrived.

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One of the reasons this technology has generated so much interest in the scientific andpharmaceutical community is that the mRNA vaccines can be made using materials that areeasier to locate and work with than traditional vaccines. This allows for production to be
standardized and increased in scale, which could make it easier to produce new vaccines more
quickly and efficiently. In addition to Covid-19, mRNA vaccines are being studied for otherpathogens such as the flu, Zika, and rabies.