LAUSR

The first worldwide article reporting that injections of synthetic non-replicating mRNA could be used as a vaccine, originated from a French team located in Paris was published in the European Journal of Immunology (EJI) in 1993. It relied on work conducted by several research groups in a handful of countries in the 1960s, who put forward the precise description of eukaryotic mRNA and the method to reproduce this molecule in vitro as well as how to transfect it into mammalian cells. Thereafter, the first industrial development of this technology began in 2000 in Germany, with the founding of CureVac, which stemmed from another description of a synthetic mRNA vaccine published in 2000 in EJI. The first clinical studies investigating mRNA vaccines in humans were performed as a collaboration between CureVac and the University of Tübingen in Germany as early as 2003. Finally, the first worldwide approved mRNA vaccine (an anti-COVID-19 vaccine) is based on the mRNA technologies developed by BioNTech since its foundation in 2008 in Mainz Germany, and earlier by the pioneering academic work of its founders. In addition to the past, present and future of mRNA-based vaccines, it is the aim of this article to present the geographical distribution of the early work, how the development of the technology was implemented by several independent and internationally distributed research teams, as well as the controversies on the optimal way to design/formulate and administer mRNA vaccines. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.