Tests of the new "moon shot" Covid-19 vaccine being developed in America on animals have been "impressive".
The US Army is currently developing a single shot Covid-19 jab that will protect against all variants.
And according to Professor Luke O'Neill, some hopefully positive results from the phase one trial on humans are expected in the coming days.
Read more: Covid-19 Ireland: New Omicron XE variant 10-20% more transmissible, expert says
He said on Newstalk on Thursday: "This is now the Moon shot, they're calling it in a way, the US are all over this.
"Can we make a vaccine that will work against any variant of Covid-19? And indeed any in animals that might jump again in the next pandemic.
"There's a massive effort happening in the US at the moment, trying to make what's called a Universal Vaccine.
"It's a great goal to have".
Professor O'Neill said test results on animals have been impressive.
"They've taken the RBD... and they've stuck it on a nano-particle, a tiny, tiny particle, made of a thing called ferritin, studded with loads of these RBDs," he said.
"[It] went into monkeys and amazingly it protects against SARS, the original virus, SARS-CoV-2, Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omicron. It protected against all of those in monkeys.
"They're in the middle of a phase one trial in humans - any day now actually, we're going to get the data from that phase one trial soon.
"That's very, very hopeful that that US Army-derived vaccine could be the first universal vaccine against Covid-19".
The new Omicron XE variant is 10-20% more transmissible than than Omicron, Professor O'Neill said.
So far there has been one reported case of XE in Ireland which was brought into the country due to travel while the UK has reported over 1,000 cases of the variant.
Professor O'Neill said on RTE Radio 1 earlier this week: "It's like a deck of cards and it keeps getting reshuffled.
"You know an immune system can recognise the same cards, basically. So far the worry would be a new deck of cards might emerge, or a different kind of suit of cards might emerge, and then we might be in more trouble, but for the moment as I say it's the same deck of cards being reshuffled basically.
"At the moment the vaccines are stopping serious illness against any variant so far, but again we have to watch it."
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