Worries that ‘Many Will Suffer’ from mRNA Vaccine Research Cuts

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday that it will cancel $500 million worth of projects dedicated to designing messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for pandemic preparedness. “We are working on about 30 different mRNA vaccines, including ones for influenza, HIV, hepatitis C, malaria, tuberculosis, and many others,” said Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, the Roberts Family Professor of Vaccine Research, who shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Katalin Karikó, PhD, for their work on mRNA. In addition to vaccines, researchers at Penn Medicine are looking into ways mRNA could deliver replacement genes or repair defective genes to treat diseases like cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia.