Future historians studying the 2020s may disagree about many things, but it is safe to assume all of them will agree that the COVID-19 pandemic was transformative. It has changed the way we socialize and do business, led to collective trauma and was likely a critical factor in President Joe Biden's election. When it comes to humanity's ongoing war against infectious diseases, this pandemic accelerated development of a new vaccine platform known as mRNA technology, one that scientists believe could some day be used against everything from malaria and tuberculosis to all strains of influenza. There was even an early hopeful sign with HIV vaccine research, with researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announcing in December that an experimental mRNA vaccine had successfully treated an HIV-virus relative in mice and rhesus macaques.
Now Moderna — which, along with Pfizer/BioNTech, was one of the first pharmaceutical companies to develop a successful COVID-19 vaccine — has announced that it is in phase one of a clinical trial for an HIV vaccine. Just as they did when fighting COVID-19, Moderna is using mRNA technology to develop this new vaccine. The fact that it is in phase one means that they are still very early in developing the inoculation, but are confident enough in its safety and potential effectiveness that they were willing to put experimental shots in people's arms. Nor is Moderna working alone on this: The trial, known as IAVI G002, is being conducted in partnership with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and is partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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