It won’t be rolled out for COVID-19, but technology developed for UQ vaccine might help fight future viruses

Back in January when scientists at the University of Queensland received funding to rapidly develop and test new vaccines, the goal was to help stop the world’s next epidemic.

Faced with the growing and urgent threat of emerging infectious diseases, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) backed the UQ team and their ‘molecular clamp’ technology to supercharge vaccine production.

“The World Health Organisation … recognises that new epidemics can arise from known and unknown viruses — the latter referred to as ‘Disease X’,” Paul Young, project co-lead and professor of virology, said at the time.

Just days later, Disease X had a name: SARS-CoV-2, and Professor Young and his team quickly got to work trying to develop a coronavirus…