It uses a different virus (adenovirus) to insert the gene to produce the spike protein (a part of the virus on the surface used to enter cells) into your own cells. Since the spike protein alone doesn't do much but your immune system reacts to it, it effectively trains the immune system before the actual bad virus comes. Pretty different from the normal process where they inject a lot of the whole virus except it's incapable of reproducing.
The vaccine they're working on supposedly will target a specific protein that will keep the virus from replicating. We shall see...
It uses a different virus (adenovirus) to insert the gene to produce the spike protein (a part of the virus on the surface used to enter cells) into your own cells. Since the spike protein alone doesn't do much but your immune system reacts to it, it effectively trains the immune system before the actual bad virus comes. Pretty different from the normal process where they inject a lot of the whole virus except it's incapable of reproducing.