Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have developed an experimental multivalent mRNA-based vaccine against all 20 known subtypes of influenza virus. Their approach differs from previous attempts to craft a universal flu vaccine, by including antigens specific to each subtype, rather than just a smaller set of antigens shared among subtypes. This strategy harnesses the same mRNA technology as that employed in the Pfizer and Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The mRNA technology that enabled those COVID-19 vaccines was pioneered at Penn.
