Pan corona vax in the works: mRNA scientist Drew Weissman

Hyderabad : At a time when there are fears of the emergence of new Covid-19 variants, American physician-scientist Dr Drew Weissman, who along with Dr Katalin Kariko worked on the mRNA vaccine platform that enabled Pfizer and Moderna to develop Covid-19 vaccines, said his lab was now working on a pan coronavirus vaccine that would be effective against all Covid-19 variants.


"What we are working on is making a pan coronavirus vaccine. What this vaccine will do is to protect against any bad coronavirus. So, there have been three coronavirus epidemics in the past 20 years… there is going to be more, so we want to make a vaccine that will stop any bad coronavirus from infecting humans," said Weissman, who was also conferred the Genome Valley Excellence Award 2022, while addressing participants virtually at the two-day BioAsia 2022.

He, however added that it is uncertain if this vaccine will have to be taken at regular intervals or will be a booster shot. He also did not indicate by when the vaccine is expected to be ready.

He warned unless the entire population of the world is fully vaccinated, new variants will keep cropping up.

"Variants are going to keep coming as long as there is widespread infection. We have only vaccinated 15% of Africa … until the world is fully vaccinated, variants are going to keep appearing," he said.

Over 70% of India's adult population has been vaccinated with double doses of Covid vaccine since the launch of vaccination drive in January 2021, whereas globally around 56% of the population has been jabbed.

On mRNA vaccines, he said apart from Covid-19, he and his researchers are working on vaccines for HIV, malaria and influenza, food allergies and cancer.

He said the mRNA platform has a great potential and can be used for different therapeutics. "My biggest hope is that someday it might be possible to treat genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis, hemochromatosis …," he added.