The biotech giant Moderna is using what experts called ’21st-century science’ to create three new vaccines to protect against the seasonal flu, HIV and Nipah virus, respectively, the company announced on Monday.
Moderna – the company that created one of two COVID-19 vaccines approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration late last year – said Monday that the development of three new vaccines will continue: one for the seasonal flu . , one for HIV, and one for Nipah virus using mRNA technology, according to a news release.
Regarding the flu vaccine in particular, Moderna said he “intends to investigate possible combination vaccines against influenza, SARS-CoV-2, RSV and human metapneumovirus (hMPV).”
Phase 1 clinical trials for the flu vaccine program are expected to begin sometime this year, Moderna said.
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The company’s potential vaccine-eight HIV, a virus that can lead to AIDS, is being developed in collaboration with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Moderna said. will also be expected to start this year.
Finally, the company is also investigating a vaccine to protect against Nipah virus, a zoonotic virus transmitted to humans by animals, contaminated food or by direct human-to-human transmission, and a variety of diseases including deadly encephalitis, ‘according to Moderna. Outbreaks have been reported extensively in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Singapore.
“The uniquely challenging year of 2020 for society as a whole has been an extraordinary proof-of-concept period for Moderna,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement.
“Even as we have shown that we can prevent MRNA-based vaccine COVID-19, it has encouraged us to pursue more ambitious development programs within our preventative vaccination,” he added.
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Unlike conventional vaccines, which are produced by growing attenuated forms of a virus in chicken eggs or certain mammalian cells in a laboratory, RNA vaccines require only the genetic code of the pathogen; they do not use an active or dormant virus.
This new, gene-based technology is effective in the development of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, in addition to those created by Moderna. The success that this technology has seen in creating an effective vaccine against the new virus has given scientists hope that the same technology can be used to fight other viral diseases, as Moderna is trying to do, and some experts believe that the technology even can be used. to fight cancer.
For a basic overview of the differences between conventional vaccines and those made with RNA technology, you can read more here.