\n<\/p>\n
The abrupt termination last month of nearly half a billion dollars in US government contracts for mRNA vaccine research rattled scientists working inside and outside industry. The cuts raised alarm about the country\u2019s commitment to the Nobel-prizewinning technology, which is credited with saving millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and is regarded as essential for fighting viruses in the future.<\/p>\n
Yet not all large-scale research into mRNA vaccines in the United States is being dismantled. Nature has learnt that, even as the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) \u2014 led by vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr \u2014 pulls back, the country\u2019s military continues to bankroll parts of the same research.<\/p>\n
Among the beneficiaries are programmes developing vaccines against some of the world\u2019s deadliest pathogens, including the virus that causes Crimean\u2013Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), a tick-borne disease that kills up to 40% of those infected. In the United States, the government considers such research crucial because these pathogens not only threaten soldiers deployed abroad, but could also ignite a global outbreak.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA lot of us are at least relieved the Department of Defense [DoD] is not abandoning mRNA research,\u201d says Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n
Still, he cautions that the HHS\u2019s rejection of the technology, combined with broader policy fractures across the government, threatens to hobble national \u2014 and global \u2014 readiness for emerging infectious threats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole biodefence structure is completely derailed,\u201d Adalja says. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen it be disconnected like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter Berglund learnt that his company\u2019s federally backed vaccine programme was being cut the same way that many other affected firms did in a 5 August notice from the HHS\u2019s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which ordered an immediate shutdown of ongoing studies. For Berglund, chief scientific officer at HDT Bio in Seattle, Washington, the news was a gut punch, as he told colleagues at a conference on RNA-based therapeutics in Boston, Massachusetts, this month.<\/p>\n
HDT had been developing a next-generation CCHF vaccine based on a form of RNA that can copy itself inside cells. The company had secured tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts, which it used first to test a shot in mice and monkeys, and then to begin a human trial in Texas this July. The BARDA memo brought everything to a halt the very next month.<\/p>\n
But \u201cthat was mommy\u201d, Berglund says. \u201cThen daddy calls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within days, HDT executives heard from project managers at the DoD\u2019s Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO) for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense, which had been co-funding the CCHF vaccine research. HDT was told to restart its trial, with the JPEO pledging support through at least this first phase of clinical evaluation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been so turbulent,\u201d Berglund says. The DoD funding, although substantial, is less than what had originally been pledged in conjunction with BARDA. \u201cBut, at least now we can advance it through phase I\u201d and worry about the rest later, he adds.<\/p>\n
Others with projects co-funded by the JPEO also learnt of funding cuts and a \u201crestructuring of collaborations\u201d in the 5 August notice. But their situation is less clear.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, began a human trial of two mRNA vaccines, despite the notice. Each is designed to protect against a different strain of avian influenza. Clinical-trial registries still list both BARDA and the JPEO as collaborators.<\/p>\n
An AstraZeneca spokesperson declined to comment on the US government\u2019s role in funding the trial against bird flu \u2014 which has been infecting US poultry and dairy cattle and raising the spectre of a leap into humans. The JPEO did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
In a statement, HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard disputed suggestions that withdrawing from joint projects would weaken the nation\u2019s pandemic preparedness, writing that \u201cBARDA is prioritizing evidence-based, ethically grounded solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The JPEO and BARDA had also been jointly funding a preclinical-stage vaccine programme for biotechnology firm Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The mRNA shot is aimed at Marburg virus \u2014 a close but even deadlier relative of Ebola \u2014 which caused an outbreak earlier this year in northwest Tanzania, resulting in ten deaths. Neither Moderna nor its collaborator, the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, responded to e-mails from Nature seeking comment on the project\u2019s funding status.<\/p>\n
Not every mRNA project has fared so well: those lacking joint DoD support have been brought to a standstill.<\/p>\n
At Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, for instance, biomedical engineer Philip Santangelo had been using CRISPR gene editing to develop an inhalable flu therapy, delivered to the lungs through mRNA. The DoD, through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), had provided more than US$20 million to support early-stage development, but that funding ran out last year. A follow-on contract from BARDA was meant to underwrite the design and testing of a dry-powder formulation that would be easy to administer in emergency settings. With the BARDA money frozen, Santangelo says that he\u2019s been forced to pursue funding from foundations, non-profit organizations and other non-governmental entities.<\/p>\n
Santangelo is hardly alone in seeking ways to keep mRNA research on track. Other academics, navigating a minefield of uncertainty over whether US funding agencies will continue to financially support such work, still submit grant proposals \u2014 but the term \u2018mRNA\u2019 is often scrubbed out, replaced by phrases such as \u2018nucleic-acid-based medicines\u2019 to sidestep scrutiny.<\/p>\n
A few glimmers of hope remain, however. A spending package advanced this month by a US House of Representatives committee directs BARDA to support mRNA-vaccine research. And the DoD\u2019s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) solicited applications this year for its Reimagining the Next Generation of Biodefense Vaccines programme. According to Karl Ruping, chief executive of Tiba Biotech in Cambridge, Massachusetts, DTRA programme managers told him that the agency is open to supporting mRNA vaccines so long as they advance the goal of more-resilient biodefence tools.<\/p>\n
Outside the defence establishment, the US Department of Agriculture is maintaining support for mRNA vaccine development as well, awarding grants for projects targeting respiratory viruses that affect pigs, chickens and cows.<\/p>\n
Taken together, these programmes reflect commitment \u2014 but only in pockets of government, exposing a troubling absence of coordination, says Michael Osterholm, an infectious-disease researcher and biosecurity specialist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
For now, researchers can take comfort knowing that agencies outside Kennedy\u2019s direct control are charting a different course. But the HHS leader\u2019s influence remains strong, and many worry that he could soon shape policy across the entire federal agenda, including at the DoD. \u201cI\u2019m not sure that it\u2019s the safe haven for mRNA research that some associate with it,\u201d Osterholm says.<\/p>\n
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on September 24, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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