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We had an mRNA vaccine for MERS coronavirus that had been tested in mice, both young and DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com old mice, and it was extremely effective. I think that data was immediately incorporated into the discussions, that I was not part of, but discussions at the Federal level, in terms of prioritizing which vaccines might go forward. So the reason, I think, that we were particularly so excited about that data is that most of the vaccines that I have tested against coronaviruses, epidemic or pandemic, not pandemic, epidemic coronaviruses like the original SARS 2003 strain, or the MERS strain, worked effectively in young animals. But when you took them into aged animals, where the vaccines are less affected by about tenfold, the vaccines would fail. And the beauty about the VRC mRNA vaccine was that the neutralizing titers in the immune responses were as effective in the old animals as the young animals, so they were fully protected. And that was very impressive.
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And so the VRC Moderna vaccine.
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Yeah. Moderna certainly was engaged. Whether they actually manufactured the vaccine that was put in the animals or not, or whether NIH made that vaccine and put it in, I don't know.
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And your vaccine, what was it called?
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2026-04-10 09:00
Ralph S. Baric
Oh, the Moderna vaccine?
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No, no, no. Yours, the one that you had DC.Scheduling@LexitasLegal.com worked with.
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Oh, we compared it to a killed vaccine. We'd also tested alpha virus-based vaccines, Venezuelan equine encephalitis replicon particles. It was basically an RNA virus where the structural genes have been removed, so it's single hit. It can only infect one set of cells. It delivers the payload gene, in this case the coronavirus antigen. That induces an immune response that is either protective or not, depending on the model system. The other was killed vaccines. In 2003, the NIH had purchased two, or the Federal Government had purchased two $20 million killed vaccines to test against SARS coronavirus.
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What's a killed vaccine?
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They took the SARS coronavirus and then they inactivated it with a chemical inactivation, a UV light. So they killed the virus so that all that was left was the antigenic preparation, and that's put in the animal. So killed vaccines are pretty commonly used in humans.