The pandemic has ushered in a new era for vaccines developed with gene-based technologies, techniques that have long bothered scientists and pharmaceutical companies, suggesting the possibility of future protection against a range of infectious diseases.
Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, approved for use in the US on Saturday, is at the forefront of a series of shots designed to mobilize a person’s immune system against the disease. It will be the first Covid-19 vaccine delivered in the US to use viral vector technology, which uses an engineered cold virus to deliver the coronavirus-fighting genetic code to the body’s cells.
J & J’s vaccine is the third approved in the US, after the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and its partner, BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. At a late stage of research, J & J’s one-time vaccine was 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe cases of the disease that killed more than 500,000 people in the US and about 2.5 million worldwide.
“This is one of those huge leap moments for us. These are fundamental shifts in the way we will build vaccines for the future, ”said C. Buddy Creech, director of Vanderbilt University’s vaccine research program. “I think this really ushers in a golden age of vaccinology.”
New vaccine technologies spurred by the pandemic are the leading efforts to combat Covid-19 and usher in a new arsenal of weapons for fighting deadly viruses in the future, infectious disease researchers say, another example of how the fight against Covid is advancing the technology. development.