2022 Sinica Open House Activity

Since the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, not only had it caused the global outbreak, but also immeasurable loss of health and wealth to the population. How to develop anti-viral drugs, therapeutic antibodies, and vaccines in the shortest time has become the biggest challenge to scientists and health agencies in the world. One of the critical research tools to evaluate the efficacy of preventive and therapeutic candidates is to establish animal models that can be infected by the virus. Academia Sinica researchers had thus developed two animal models at the quickest time that can be challenged by SARS-CoV-2. Upon infection, these animal models can mimic viral replication and lung inflammation as human body, including death response. mRNA vaccine technology has achieved significant breakthroughs over the last few years. As compared to conventional vaccine technology, mRNA has the advantages of fast design, development, and manufacturing. The impact and importance of mRNA vaccines in face of COVID-19 has been obvious to the world. We anticipate that mRNA will become the major type of technology for vaccine development. Therefore, Academia Sinica has set up the mRNA ALPHA research team, with the goal to rapidly develop key mRNA technologies essential for R&D. When new Omicron variant was just announced by the World Health Organization, ALPHA team led the world to firstly publish the results of next-generation mRNA vaccines for Omicron variant, with data showing that high titers of neutralizing antibodies can be induced in mice. This demonstrates that the Academia Sinica team has equipped with the capability of quickly producing and validating the efficacy of mRNA vaccines once developed, hoping to provide the best protection to our nation against the next pandemics.