Tal Zaks, the chief medical officer of Moderna, says that the vaccine he is working on is set to begin phase 3 testing, meaning human trials, in July. If it is proven to work safely, he says, “we’ll deliver one billion vaccine doses by 2021.”He claimed that "the software of life" can be used to prevent the pandemic from spreading, referring to messenger RNA, reported on Friday.Messenger RNA gives the body instructions how to make proteins, which is why Zaks compared it to software which tells the computer how to run a program.
Born in Israel and having served in the IDF as a medic, Zaks said in the past that he is “not surprised that the vaccine works,” as the company has already been successful in developing vaccines for eight other viruses, including several which specifically target respiratory infections.
The vaccine has not been demonstrated to work yet, but it does show a great deal of promise, Reuters reported.The Federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority gave Moderna $483 million to support its efforts.
Zaks had been working at the company since 2015 and, like many others, was denied visiting his 80-year-old mother last Passover because flights had been severely limited due to the pandemic.He told the media that his service in the army and his studies at Ben Gurion University placed him on the path to where he is now, researching cutting edge science in the US.
Countries and pharmaceutical companies have been racing against each other in the hopes of not just finding a cure, but also being the first to sell one to the entire world population.Moderna was selected by the administration of US President Donald Trump as one of the five candidates that are most likely to reach the goal of creating a vaccine, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.The other candidates are Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, and the collaboration of AstraZeneca with Oxford University,