Leveraging a Nucleic Acid Platform to Accelerate the Development of a SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine

Given the COVID-19 global pandemic, there is a lot of work being done rapidly develop a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. A human vaccine is essential for long term protection of high-risk individuals and health care workers. Traditional approaches to prophylactic vaccine development (e.g., attenuated strains of viruses or heat-inactivated viruses) have lengthy development timelines to establish safety and efficacy. This session will introduce the challenges with vaccine development in the face of a global pandemic and will provide some examples of where nucleic acid-based vaccines can be developed on rapid timelines. Technical talks will focus on two approaches that are being used today to develop vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. In addition to speed to clinical testing, these approaches have the additional benefit of leveraging a platform nucleic acid technology that has potential to be scaled rapidly to allow for greater reach globally.