Specialized printer may help vaccines reach more people Researchers have developed a specialized printer to generate vaccine-filled microneedle skin patches that can be stored long-term without refrigeration. Their research, published Monday in Nature Biotechnology, may eventually bring more vaccines to more people.Read More
Testing vaccine candidates with lab-grown organoids Researchers have developed a new testing platform that encapsulates B cells -- important immune system components -- into miniature lab-grown organoids. The results, published Wednesday in ACS Central Science, may hasten vaccine screening and significantly reduce the number of experimental animals used in the process, the researchers said.Read More
COVID-19 vaccine development: Public funding yielded private profits Decades before the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government invested at least $337 million into critical research that led to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The government also paid $31.6 billion during the pandemic for vaccine research, production, and vaccines for all Americans.Read More
Vaccine effectiveness against Omicron variants may change over time Researchers from The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts collaborated on a case-control study and found that two vaccines were generally effective over time against severe outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection. The research, published February 3 in the journal JAMA Network Open, also showed that protection among older individuals was more likely to wane six months after the second dose.Read More