Vaccines, Immunology and Clinical Trials

Coronavirus (Covid 19) and Next-Generation Vaccines

Three new, highly transmissible variants of Covid-19 have been front and center of the news agenda in 2021. The emergence of these variants has created concern that the vaccines authorized for Covid-19 may not be the way out of the pandemic the world hoped. Fortunately, next-generation vaccines are coming through the pipeline, which has been designed with potential Covid-19 mutations and variants specifically in mind. Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses known to cause respiratory tract infections in humans and other animals. Although all viruses mutate while replicating and infecting host cells, RNA viruses are particularly unstable, meaning they are more prone to mutation during replication.