How we prepare for an ‘age of pandemics’

The current pandemic caught the world off guard but there are more to come, and we need to work out how to better prepare for and respond to future crises before they occur, an audience at the European Commission’s annual Research and Innovation Days conference has heard. ‘It is likely that we are entering an age of … Read more

Q&A: BioNTech vaccine is only ‘mRNA 1.0’. This is just the beginning, say co-founders

The successful development of mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 is ‘transformational’ and opens the doors to new types of vaccines for other infectious diseases as well as cancer, according to Dr Özlem Türeci and Dr Uğur Şahin, the co-founders of Germany’s BioNTech. The main question, they say, is which vaccine to prioritise first. The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine was … Read more

Coronavirus recovery: Europe needs investment on a ‘wartime footing’

Having the euro means that many EU countries are no longer in control over their own currencies and the European Central Bank will play a critical role in Europe’s post-coronavirus recovery, says Prof. Stephanie Kelton. Image credit - European Commission

European governments need to provide investment on a ‘wartime footing’ to stimulate a post-coronavirus economic recovery, but also need to redefine economic success to incorporate climate and social goals, the European Research and Innovation Days conference has heard. Speaking about how Europe can best achieve a sustainable and inclusive recovery, Stephanie Kelton, a professor of … Read more

Q&A: In a picture – dancing about particle physics

The dance 'Neutrino Passoire', meaning 'colander of neutrinos’, is a study of an elusive type of particle - how it moves, and as analogy for the cross-border movement of people. Image credit - Mairi Pardalaki

Particle physicist Professor Kostas Nikolopoulos, at the University of Birmingham, UK, who was part of the team who discovered the Higgs boson, tells Horizon why he worked on a dance about neutrinos and the similarities between the creative process in science and the arts. The idea to do a dance performance about neutrino physics happened … Read more

Five things you need to know about: mRNA vaccines

According to Prof. Bekeredjian-Ding, an approved mRNA coronavirus vaccine would be easier and faster to produce and thus deploy worldwide than a conventional vaccine. Image credit - Unsplash/Liliya Lisa

The race for a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, is on, with 54 different vaccines under development, two of which are already being tested in humans, according to the World Health Organization. And among the different candidates is a new player on the scene – mRNA vaccines. One mRNA vaccine developed by US company … Read more