GreenLight Biosciences has announced a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop COVID-19 vaccines that are more broadly protective against new variants and with longer-lasting effects. GreenLight—in collaboration with the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), part of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—will co-design and test mRNA vaccines against coronaviruses with the goal of developing vaccines that confer a more durable immune response than current vaccines. In addition, they will work together to develop systems that expedite new designs into clinical use.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to evolve and accumulate genomic mutations with the potential to negatively affect the efficacy of existing medical countermeasures. For the current COVID-19 pandemic and future coronavirus-related pandemics, the rapid development and deployment of vaccines active against a range of coronaviruses, including variants of SARS-CoV-2, will be vital for public health.