Very good point. I understand why they confused it. But I would not expect someone writing such a technical article to make such a fundamental error in important meaningful terminology.
I teach this stuff, and the confusion is understandable -but not in someone writing science at this supposed level.
And it’s not just a “slip of the tongue”.
RNA uses uracil, not thymidine. So all those AT base pairs he’s writing about should be AU.
And to be clear — there’s something wrong with the Moderna timeline.
China published the sequence on January 9, Moderna (which as of then had had no products) has a Phase I trial candidate February 5?
They took 70 days to produce an Omicron variant mRNA trial vaccine candidate using a by now large installed research and manufacturing base with literally billions in revenue to support the work.
27 days out of the gate in February 2020 with a completely novel mechanism, no revenue, and five guys in lab coats trying to make a living?
I don’t think so.
But my comment stands. Using DNA examples and DNA terms to talk about SARS CoV 2 just means you don’t know what you are talking about.