The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has requested information on all the research grants on messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology that it funds. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the agency, has categorically denied that this work is being defunded, however. Such assurances aside, there is significant and mounting concern within the nation’s research community.
‘A data call was conducted by NIH to understand what NIH is funding on mRNA vaccines,’ HHS deputy press secretary Emily Hilliard tells Chemistry World. ‘No mRNA vaccine funding has been cancelled .’
Nevertheless, there is trepidation from researchers in the field and beyond. ‘I am very concerned about the fate of mRNA technology research in the United States, including the continued funding of my own lab,’ says Justin Richner, a microbiologist and immunologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, who has an NIH grant for an mRNA-based vaccine against dengue virus.
It is understood all the data collected would be reported to the HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has cast doubt on mRNA vaccines in the past. In 2021, Kennedy called Pfizer’s mRNA-based vaccine for Covid-19 ‘the deadliest vaccine ever made’. That same year he also unsuccessfully petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to rescind approval for the covid vaccine through the Children’s Health Defense, a US-based nonprofit focused on children’s health and environmental safety that Kennedy founded.
Richner has yet to hear anything from the NIH regarding the status of his grant, but in the meantime he and his colleagues are exploring other options to support their mRNA vaccine research. These include exploring partnerships with non-profit organisations, as well as commercialisation. Richner says, however, that ‘none of these can fully replace the funding of basic science provided by the NIH’.
News outlets like KFF Health News have reported that biomedical researchers in the US have heard directly from NIH staff that the agency is flagging grant applications related to mRNA vaccine technology. This led to suggestions from staff that references to mRNA vaccines should be removed from study proposals.
In 2023, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman won the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for their work developing mRNA vaccines. Both were working in the US when they conducted their prize-winning research.
Agency dodges details
Hilliard did not respond to further requests from Chemistry World as to whether these reports are false, explain why researchers have reported being told something different to the HHS’s official line or clarify why the NIH is singling out the mRNA vaccine research it funds.
‘In that statement, HHS has carefully avoided saying what the agency’s official view on mRNA work is or what they might do about it in the future,’ states Derek Lowe, a US-based drug discovery chemist and Chemistry World columnist. ‘I trust the researchers who have spoken up and I trust the press contact people from this administration not one tiny bit,’ he adds.
Kirstin Matthews, a molecular biologist who directs the science and technology policy programme at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Texas, is also worried. ‘This is rather concerning,’ she says. ‘Singling [out] mRNA vaccines for review implies there is something wrong with them, but I’m not aware of scientific research showing major concerns to justify this position.’ It could also stifle future innovation using mRNA and the development of new vaccines, Matthews suggests.
mRNA vaccine technology is so flexible that it might have applications in fields unrelated to infectious diseases like cancer, according to Jeremy Berg, a biochemist who served as director of the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences for almost eight years. In February, a study led by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York yielded promising results from an mRNA-based vaccine against pancreatic cancer.
John Holdren, an environmental and climate scientist who was science adviser to former President Barack Obama, is worried by these developments. ‘There may well have been no mRNA-vaccine funding cancelled yet … but the worry is that HHS may be working up to that,’ he warns.
If the US does not support this work, other countries will, Berg says. ‘We are just giving up opportunities for discovery and the development of valuable intellectual properties for unscientific reasons based on misinformation,’ he says.
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