SYDNEY, March 10 (Xinhua) -- The University of Queensland (UQ) has entered into a partnership with biotechnology company Moderna, as Aussie researchers delve into the cutting edge of mRNA vaccine research.
The new partnership, the first in Australia announced on Thursday, was the result of efforts from UQ scientists Mark Walker and Paul Young, who said the access to Moderna's mRNA platform would allow for the development of vaccines for neglected and emerging viruses.
"This partnership is a coup for UQ with advances in vaccine delivery potentially saving thousands of lives in developing countries," Young said.
He said there were at least 10 disease research projects underway at UQ that could benefit immediately from the mRNA Access partnership.
"Moderna will set up a portal where researchers in this collaborative agreement will have access to their mRNA technology to target these identified pathogens," Young said.
The partnership would allow researchers at UQ to provide sequences for vaccines that could then be produced in labs in the United States and delivered for clinical use in as little as 100 days.
"There is no doubt that the production of vaccines to target these diseases will be delivered more quickly by this collaboration," said Young.
The researchers would focus on developing vaccines for both future diseases and diseases that are currently a problem in low- and middle-income countries, like dengue, malaria, tuberculosis and zika virus.
Walker added that the opportunity would allow them to create vaccines for these bacterial diseases that have shown resistance to antibiotic forms of treatment.
"While much of the recent narrative has been around viral and pandemic vaccines, targeting anti-microbial resistant bacterial diseases is another important goal of this partnership," he said.
"Researchers are starting to think about trying to resolve this growing global threat via vaccines instead of antibiotics." ■