Feature|Articles|August 10, 2026

The Effects of COVID-19 Influencing the Development of Vaccines

A decades-long research effort in mRNA-produced licensed vaccines targets influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, cytomegalovirus, HIV, and cancer.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology, first proposed in the early 1970s and confirmed in the laboratory only in the late 1990s, remained a largely experimental concept for 2 more decades.¹