Reuters notes the "miraculous speed" of mRNA vaccines, while also calling it "a glimpse of what's possible if it can be applied post-pandemic to treat cancer or rare diseases."

The vaccine market alone is worth about $35 billion each year, and investors apparently believe mRNA companies will capture around two-third of that, leading market researcher Bernstein to evalaute the combined worth of mRNA companies at nearly $180 billion. The technology is the closest thing yet to making medicine digital. MRNA vaccines essentially inject genetic code that instructs a recipients' cells to construct a part of the virus. The body recognizes the produced protein as foreign and mounts a future immune response when exposed. Moderna and BioNTech's vaccines show the technology works fast. Vaccines typically take a decade to develop. They took less than a year...

The speed of mRNA therapeutics is a big advantage. For example, flu vaccines only reduce the risk of illness by up to 60% because makers must guess which strains will be prevalent each season. Sometimes they're wrong. Shaving months off means better guesses, and higher efficacy.

The bigger opportunity comes from the validation of the mRNA "platform". Instructing cells to produce desired proteins could lead to multiple advances. Perhaps they can instruct the body to more vigorously attack cancerous cells or repair damaged tissue. Producing missing proteins might fight inherited diseases...

Success against Covid-19 means these companies will be flush with cash from sales and attract partnerships and scientific talent. That should make 2021 a watershed.

Weighing up to 380,000 pounds and stretching some 100 feet long, the blue whale -- the largest creature to have ever lived on Earth -- might at first seem difficult for human eyes and ears to miss. But a previously unknown population of the leviathans has long been lurking in the Indian Ocean, leaving scientists none the wiser, new research suggests. From a report: The covert cadre of whales, described in a paper published last week in the journal Endangered Species Research, has its own signature anthem: a slow, bellowing ballad that's distinct from any other whale song ever described. It joins only a dozen or so other blue whale songs that have been documented, each the calling card of a unique population. "It's like hearing different songs within a genre -- Stevie Ray Vaughan versus B. B. King," said Salvatore Cerchio, a marine mammal biologist at the African Aquatic Conservation Fund in Massachusetts and the study's lead author. "It's all blues, but you know the different styles."

The find is "a great reminder that our oceans are still this very unexplored place," said Asha de Vos, a marine biologist who has studied blue whales in the Indian Ocean but was not involved in the new study. Dr. Cerchio and his colleagues first tuned into the whales' newfound song while in scientific pursuit of a pod of Omura's whales off the coast of Madagascar several years ago. After hearing the rumblings of blue whales via a recorder planted on the coastal shelf, the researchers decided to drop their instruments into deeper water in the hopes of eavesdropping further. A number of blue whale populations, each with its own characteristic croon, have long been known to visit this pocket of the Indian Ocean, Dr. Cerchio said. But one of the songs that crackled through the team's Madagascar recordings was unlike any the researchers had heard.

An anonymous reader shares a feature report: At the end of 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic started, the two best-known faces of the pharmaceutical business were the imprisoned Martin Shkreli and the lawsuit-laden opioid makers at Purdue Pharma. The rest of the industry was perhaps best known for the skyrocketing prices of its medicines. In a Gallup Poll of the public's view of various business sectors, pharma was ranked at the bottom, behind the oil industry, advertising and public relations, and lawyers. Who'd have guessed that a year later pharma would be getting credit for saving the world?

From cruise lines to meatpackers, business will have plenty to answer for in its handling of the pandemic, but this part of it worked. The Covid-19 vaccines developed by the drug industry, in partnership with governments, will almost certainly prevent hundreds of thousands of American deaths and millions more around the world. They will revive trillions of dollars in economic activity, let grandparents see grandchildren, and finally bring an end to a year that has -- sing it together one last time as the ball drops over an empty Times Square -- really sucked. In a time where almost everything else went wrong, the vaccine effort was something that went (mostly) right.

A growing number of "cryptic species" hiding in plain sight have been unmasked in the past year, driven in part by the rise of DNA barcoding, a technique that can identify and differentiate between animal and plant species using their genetic divergence. From a report: The discovery of new species of aloe, African leaf-nosed bats and chameleons that appear similar to the human eye but are in fact many and separate have thrilled and worried conservationists. Scientists say our planet might be more biologically diverse than previously thought, and estimates for the total number of species could be far higher than the current best guess of 8.7 million. But cryptic discoveries often mean that species once considered common and widespread are actually several, some of which may be endangered and require immediate protection.

The Jonah's mouse lemur was only unveiled to the world this summer but is already on the verge of extinction. The newly described Popa langur in Myanmar, previously confused with another species, numbers around 200 and is likely to be classified as critically endangered, threatened by habitat loss and deforestation. The discovery of these cryptic species has been driven in part by the rise of DNA barcoding, a technique that can identify and differentiate between animal and plant species using their genetic divergence. African elephants, Indian vine snakes and South American neotropical birds are among the growing number of unmaskings. Thousands more are expected in the coming years, from living creatures and museum samples.

The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research(KSTAR), a superconducting fusion device also known as the Korean artificial sun, set the new world record as it succeeded in maintaining the high temperature plasma for 20 seconds with an ion temperature over 100 million degrees. Phys.Org reports: On November 24 (Tuesday), the KSTAR Research Center at the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KEF) announced that in a joint research with the Seoul National University (SNU) and Columbia University of the United States, it succeeded in continuous operation of plasma for 20 seconds with an ion-temperature higher than 100 million degrees, which is one of the core conditions of nuclear fusion in the 2020 KSTAR Plasma Campaign. It is an achievement to extend the 8 second plasma operation time during the 2019 KSTAR Plasma Campaign by more than 2 times. In its 2018 experiment, the KSTAR reached the plasma ion temperature of 100 million degrees for the first time (retention time: about 1.5 seconds)

To re-create fusion reactions that occur in the sun on Earth, hydrogen isotopes must be placed inside a fusion device like KSTAR to create a plasma state where ions and electrons are separated, and ions must be heated and maintained at high temperatures. In its 2020 experiment, the KSTAR improved the performance of the Internal Transport Barrier(ITB) mode, one of the next generation plasma operation modes developed last year and succeeded in maintaining the plasma state for a long period of time, overcoming the existing limits of the ultra-high-temperature plasma operation.

fahrbot-bot shares a report from Phys.Org: Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered a way to make self-assembled nanowires of transition metal chalcogenides at scale using chemical vapor deposition. By changing the substrate where the wires form, they can tune how these wires are arranged, from aligned configurations of atomically thin sheets to random networks of bundles. This paves the way to industrial deployment in next-gen industrial electronics, including energy harvesting, and transparent, efficient, even flexible devices.

Using a process called chemical vapor deposition (CVD), they found that they could assemble TMC nanowires in different arrangements depending on the surface or substrate that they use as a template. Examples are shown in Figure 2; in (a), nanowires grown on a silicon/silica substrate form a random network of bundles; in (b), the wires assemble in a set direction on a sapphire substrate, following the structure of the underlying sapphire crystal. By simply changing where they are grown, the team now have access to centimeter-sized wafers covered in the arrangement they desired, including monolayers, bilayers and networks of bundles, all with different applications. They also found that the structure of the wires themselves were highly crystalline and ordered, and that their properties, including their excellent conductivity and 1D-like behavior, matched those found in theoretical predictions. The research has been published in the journal Nano Letters.

During the Great Conjunction event in which Jupiter and Saturn appeared closer to each other in the sky than they have for hundreds of years, photographer Jason De Freitas captured a photo showing the ISS zipping between the two planets. PetaPixel reports: While planning to photograph the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, De Freitas realized that he could also include the ISS in the frame. "I had the incredible luck of figuring out I could see the path of the International Space Station traveling through the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction," De Freitas says. After a great deal of planning, on December 17th, De Freitas drove an hour -- "quite a short distance in the scheme of things," he says -- to a location where everything would be aligned perfectly for his shot.

At around 9:54pm from Jellore Lookout in New South Wales, Australia, De Freitas pointed his Pentax 67 and Takumar 600mm f/4 at the planets and captured a 10-second exposure on Fujifilm Provia 100f film. The tracking was done with a Skywatcher NEQ6 equatorial mount. The photo above is what resulted. Here's a closer crop in which you can more clearly see the planets and Jupiter's moons. De Freitas also used a Nikon D750 and Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 to capture digital video of the event. "Probably the most unique shot I've ever taken," De Freitas says. "[S]omehow everything on the night worked out. Beyond thrilled with this one.

Pfizer and partner BioNTech agreed to supply an additional 100 million doses of their Covid-19 vaccine to the U.S., as the country seeks to widen its immunization program and revive its economy. From a report: The agreement brings the total number of doses to be delivered to the U.S. to 200 million, the companies said Wednesday in a statement. The drugmaker expects to deliver all the doses to U.S. vaccine and drug accelerator Operation Warp Speed by July 31. Countries around the world are seeking supplies of vaccine they hope will allow the reopening of schools and businesses and the resumption of travel. The U.K. has also begun administering doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, and European drug authorities cleared it for use on Monday.

The U.S. has been working to expand supplies of the front-runner vaccine, in light of the drugmakers' commitments to other countries. Earlier this month, the U.S. exercised an option to buy 100 million additional vaccine doses from Moderna, doubling the number it has on order from that company to 200 million. Like Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine, Moderna's is a two-shot regimen based on new technology known as messenger RNA, but it doesn't have to be stored at the same ultracold temperatures as the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

Microplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time, which the researchers said was "a matter of great concern." From a report: The health impact of microplastics in the body is as yet unknown. But the scientists said they could carry chemicals that could cause long-term damage or upset the foetus's developing immune system. The particles are likely to have been consumed or breathed in by the mothers. The particles were found in the placentas from four healthy women who had normal pregnancies and births. Microplastics were detected on both the foetal and maternal sides of the placenta and in the membrane within which the foetus develops. A dozen plastic particles were found. Only about 4% of each placenta was analysed, however, suggesting the total number of microplastics was much higher. All the particles analysed were plastics that had been dyed blue, red, orange or pink and may have originally come from packaging, paints or cosmetics and personal care products. The microplastics were mostly 10 microns in size (0.01mm), meaning they are small enough to be carried in the bloodstream. The particles may have entered the babies' bodies, but the researchers were unable to assess this.

Carnegie's Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison teamed up with CU Boulder philosophy of science professor Carol Cleland to propose that scientists adopt a new "evolutionary system" of mineral classification -- one that includes historical data and reflects changes in the diversity and distribution of minerals through more than 4 billion years of Earth's history. Their work is published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Phys.Org reports: The IMA classification system for minerals dates to the 19th century when geologist James Dwight Dana outlined a way to categorize minerals on the basis of unique combinations of idealized compositions of major elements and geometrically idealized crystal structure. "For example, the IMA defines quartz as pure silicon dioxide, but the existence of this idealized version is completely fictional," said Morrison. "Every specimen of quartz contains imperfections -- traces of its formation process that makes it unique." This approach to the categorization system means minerals with distinctly different historical origins are lumped together [...] while other minerals that share a common causal history are split apart.

"The IMA system is typical," said lead author Cleland, explaining that most classification systems in the natural sciences, such as the periodic table of the elements, are time independent, categorizing material things "solely on the basis of manifest similarities and differences, regardless of how they were produced or what modifications they have undergone." For many researchers, a time-independent system is completely appropriate. But this approach doesn't work well for planetary and other historically oriented geosciences, where the emphasis is on understanding the formation and development of planetary bodies. Differences in a diamond or quartz crystal's formative history are critical, Cleland said, because the conditions under which a sample was formed and the modifications it has undergone "are far more informative than the mere fact that a crystal qualifies as diamond or quartz." She, Hazen, and Morrison argue that what planetary scientists need is a new system of categorizing minerals that includes historical "natural kinds."

Because a universal theory of "mineral evolution" does not exist, creating such a classification system for the geosciences is challenging. Hazen, Morrison, and Cleland's proposed solution is what they call a "bootstrap" approach based on historically revelatory, information-rich chemical, physical, and biological attributes of solid materials. This strategy allows scientists to build a historical system of mineral kinds while remaining agnostic about its underlying theoretical principles.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A team of scientists at Freie Universitat Berlin has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) method for calculating the ground state of the Schrodinger equation in quantum chemistry. The goal of quantum chemistry is to predict chemical and physical properties of molecules based solely on the arrangement of their atoms in space, avoiding the need for resource-intensive and time-consuming laboratory experiments. In principle, this can be achieved by solving the Schrodinger equation, but in practice this is extremely difficult. Up to now, it has been impossible to find an exact solution for arbitrary molecules that can be efficiently computed. But the team at Freie Universitat has developed a deep learning method that can achieve an unprecedented combination of accuracy and computational efficiency.

The deep neural network designed by [the] team is a new way of representing the wave functions of electrons. "Instead of the standard approach of composing the wave function from relatively simple mathematical components, we designed an artificial neural network capable of learning the complex patterns of how electrons are located around the nuclei," [Professor Frank Noe, who led the team effort] explains. "One peculiar feature of electronic wave functions is their antisymmetry. When two electrons are exchanged, the wave function must change its sign. We had to build this property into the neural network architecture for the approach to work," adds [Dr. Jan Hermann of Freie Universitat Berlin, who designed the key features of the method in the study]. This feature, known as 'Pauli's exclusion principle,' is why the authors called their method 'PauliNet.' Besides the Pauli exclusion principle, electronic wave functions also have other fundamental physical properties, and much of the innovative success of PauliNet is that it integrates these properties into the deep neural network, rather than letting deep learning figure them out by just observing the data. "Building the fundamental physics into the AI is essential for its ability to make meaningful predictions in the field," says Noe. "This is really where scientists can make a substantial contribution to AI, and exactly what my group is focused on." The results were published in the journal Nature Chemistry.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Some diamonds were formed billions of years ago in space as the carbon-rich atmospheres of dying stars expanded and cooled. In our own planet's lifetime, high-temperatures and pressures in the mantle produced the diamonds that are familiar to us as gems. 5,000 years ago, a large meteorite that struck a carbon-rich sediment on Earth produced an impact diamond. Each of these diamonds differs from the others in both composition and genesis, but all are categorized as "diamond" by the authoritative guide to minerals -- the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification. For many physical scientists, this inconsistency poses no problem. But the IMA system leaves unanswered questions for planetary scientists, geobiologists, paleontologists and others who strive to understand minerals' historical context.

So, Carnegie's Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison teamed up with CU Boulder philosophy of science professor Carol Cleland to propose that scientists address this shortcoming with a new "evolutionary system" of mineral classification -- one that includes historical data and reflects changes in the diversity and distribution of minerals through more than 4 billion years of Earth's history. Their work is published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We came together from the very different fields of philosophy and planetary science to see if there was a rigorous way to bring the dimension of time into discussions about the solid materials that compose Earth," Hazen said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Several European countries have banned flights from the U.K. over fears about a new coronavirus variant that has forced millions of people in Britain to cancel their Christmas plans. Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Italy all announced restrictions on U.K. travel. Others will likely follow suit as scientists warned that the new strain spreads more quickly than its predecessor. [...] U.K. health officials first identified the new variant, which British scientists have called "VUI -- 202012/01," in mid-September, Maria Van Kerkhove, the Covid-19 technical lead for the World Health Organization, told the BBC on Sunday.

Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, warned in a statement Saturday that it the virus considered to be spreading more quickly. But he said there was no evidence so far to suggest that the new strain is more potent in terms of severe illness or death. "Our working assumption from all the scientists is that the vaccine response should be adequate for this virus," Patrick Vallance, the U.K. government's chief scientific adviser, said at a news briefing Saturday. But Ravindra Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said he was concerned that the virus is on a pathway to become resistant to vaccines. "Whilst it may not be actually resistant, it may not take so many changes after this for it to get there," he said. However, Clarke said that different versions of flu vaccines are required every year and that he did not see why it could not be the same for the coronavirus. The report notes that the new variant "has so far been identified in Denmark, the Netherlands and Australia," adding that more sequencing that can be done will be helpful to determine if this variant is circulating elsewhere.

Gupta said the new strain should be cause for concern in the U.S. and other countries. Warning that the virus could mutate again, he said, "people need to step up their surveillance."

A team of astronomers has discovered evidence in over 150 galaxies for a long-standing alternative model of "modified gravity." New Atlas reports: [R]esearchers on the new study say they've observed the [external field effect] (EFE) in action in 153 different galaxies. The team was studying the rotation curve of the galaxies, which plots the orbital speed of stars and gas against their distance from the center of the galaxy. The researchers discovered that galaxies in strong external fields slowed down much more frequently than galaxies in weaker external fields did. That's a prediction made only by [Modified Newtonian dynamics] MOND, and the discovery surprised even the astronomers themselves.

"The external field effect on rotation curves is expected to be very tiny," says Federico Lelli, co-author of the study. "We spent months checking various systematics. In the end, it became clear we had a real, solid detection." It's an intriguing result, and it may lend some weight to the MOND hypothesis for further study. But it's important to keep in mind that so far the bulk of the evidence still points towards dark matter, and it'll take much more work to topple that hypothesis entirely. The research was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Jupiter and Saturn will appear as a double planet in the night sky Monday evening thanks to a rare planetary alignment known as a "great conjunction." Axios explains how to see it: In order to see the two planets, step outside under clear skies not long after sundown and look to the southwest. Jupiter will look brighter than Saturn and will appear just above the ringed planet. If you hold out your hand to the sky, the tip of your pinky will be able to cover both planets at once, according to NASA. The two planets will be bright enough to see from most cities. For those interested, NASA has a dedicated article on how to photograph the conjunction.

Former Department of Health data manager Rebekah Jones has filed a lawsuit (PDF) against the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, saying the Dec. 7 morning raid on her house was a "sham" to retaliate against her for not altering COVID-19 data. Tallahassee.com reports: Jones was fired in May for failing to change COVID-19 data, and soon launched her own online data dashboard. Gov. Ron DeSantis said her firing was because she disobeyed superiors; she said it was because she wouldn't alter data to cast Florida in a more favorable light to justify the governor's plans to reopen the state's economy. In the lawsuit filed Sunday night against FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen, the department and several agents in Leon County Circuit Civil Court, Jones claims her constitutional rights were violated, including against unlawful search and seizure. She is seeking in excess of $100,000, according to the lawsuit's cover sheet.

She also claims she was unnecessarily roughed up. "We are trying to achieve some kind of redress," said Rick Johnson, the lead attorney in both the civil suit and a separate whistleblower case. "This is still America. This is the kind of thing that happens in tinhorn dictatorships in third world countries." Swearingen has defended the actions of the agents he said were "vilified" by the media. He blamed Jones for any risk of danger to herself or her family. He reiterated those comments in a statement released later Monday. "As I have said before, I am proud of the professionalism shown by our FDLE agents as they served a legal search warrant on the residence of Rebekah Jones. Our criminal investigation continues, and while I have not seen this lawsuit, I believe the facts will come out in court," Swearingen said.

An algorithm determining which Stanford Medicine employees would receive its 5,000 initial doses of the COVID-19 vaccine included just seven medical residents / fellows on the list, according to a December 17th letter sent from Stanford Medicine's chief resident council. The Verge reports: Stanford Medicine leadership has since apologized and promised to re-evaluate the plan. "We take complete responsibility for the errors in the execution of our vaccine distribution plan," a Stanford Medicine spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. "Our intent was to develop an ethical and equitable process for distribution of the vaccine. We apologize to our entire community, including our residents, fellows, and other frontline care providers, who have performed heroically during our pandemic response. We are immediately revising our plan to better sequence the distribution of the vaccine." The residents' letter also alleges that the error in the algorithm was found on Tuesday but that leadership opted not to make changes to the plan ahead of its December 17th release.

The initial plan led to demonstrations from medical staff in addition to the letter sent by the chief resident council. Here's how the algorithm reportedly worked, according to NPR: "According to an email sent by a chief resident to other residents, Stanford's leaders explained that an algorithm was used to assign its first allotment of the vaccine. The algorithm was said to have prioritized those health care workers at highest risk for COVID infections, along with factors like age and the location or unit where they work in the hospital. Residents apparently did not have an assigned location, and along with their typically young age, they were dropped low on the priority list."

Astronomers behind the most extensive search yet for alien life are investigating an intriguing radio wave emission that appears to have come from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the sun. From a report: The narrow beam of radio waves was picked up during 30 hours of observations by the Parkes telescope in Australia in April and May last year, the Guardian understands. Analysis of the beam has been under way for some time and scientists have yet to identify a terrestrial culprit such as ground-based equipment or a passing satellite. It is usual for astronomers on the $100m Breakthrough Listen project to spot strange blasts of radio waves with the Parkes telescope or the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, but all so far have been attributed to human-made interference or natural sources. The latest "signal" is likely to have a mundane explanation too, but the direction of the narrow beam, around 980MHz, and an apparent shift in its frequency said to be consistent with the movement of a planet have added to the tantalising nature of the finding. Scientists are now preparing a paper on the beam, named BLC1, for Breakthrough Listen, the project to search for evidence of life in space, the Guardian understands. The beam that appears to have come from the direction of Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star 4.2 light years from Earth, has not been spotted since the initial observation, according to an individual in the astronomy community who requested anonymity because the work is ongoing. "It is the first serious candidate since the 'Wow! signal'," they said.

Pfizer and BioNTech SE's Covid-19 vaccine won the backing of a key European review panel, clearing the way for inoculations to start before the end of the year as the continent struggles with rising death rates and tighter lockdowns. From a report: The endorsement was announced in a news briefing by the European Medicines Agency on Monday. The final step in approval is a sign-off from the European Commission. European Union leaders pushed the regulator to speed up its review amid complaints that residents across the continent were still waiting to get a vaccine -- pioneered in Germany -- that is already being used in the U.K. and U.S. The goal is to start a European immunization campaign on Dec. 27, commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week. Monday's recommendation puts the EU in position to meet that timeline. The commission last week signaled it would give the official go-ahead for distribution to start no later than two days after the agency's sign-off.

In a long article titled "Gates versus the Pandemic," Fast Company looks at the many mitigation efforts launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

- It's one of the largest funders of the World Health Organization.

- It's partnered with the governments of Norway and India, the World Economic Forum, and the research-charity Wellcome Trust to launch an important group called the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

And then Fast Company breaks down the specifics: - The Gates Foundation invested $52 million in a German mRNA startup named CureVac in 2015; a year later, it gave Massachusetts-based Moderna a $20 million grant to support its development of mRNA-based HIV therapeutics, which helped the company further its underlying platform that can also be used to make vaccines.

- The foundation made an initial equity investment of $55 million in BioNTech, another German startup working on mRNA technology, in 2019. (While the foundation typically makes grants, it sometimes invests in companies to negotiate terms that require a funded product be globally accessible and affordable.)

The goal of all of this spending, in part, was to encourage these companies to focus on mRNA vaccines for communicable illnesses. "If you're looking at where the money is," in medical funding, "it's in oncology and cancer immunotherapy," says Lynda Stuart, deputy director of vaccines and host-pathogen biology at the Gates Foundation. Without a push, companies working in the space "wouldn't necessarily gravitate to infectious disease vaccines."

As the virus was beginning to spread, the Gates Foundation encouraged its other vaccine development partners to turn to COVID-19.

- Researchers at Oxford University started work on a coronavirus vaccine made from a weakened, altered form of a chimpanzee cold virus, a platform that CEPI had supported for other vaccines such as MERS.

- Novavax, a biotech startup the foundation had previously funded, also entered the race to create a vaccine.

By October, more than 200 COVID-19 vaccines were in development, but only 11 had reached Phase III clinical trials (human efficacy tests, the last step before regulatory approval). Of those, four vaccine platforms — from Moderna, BioNTech, Novavax, and the University of Oxford — had received early backing from CEPI or the Gates Foundation. In November, BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna, and Oxford-AstraZeneca all announced that their respective vaccines had proved highly effective in preliminary study results. On December 11, the FDA approved the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, which represents a huge victory for the Gates Foundation. (In addition, the foundation is funding contenders that are at an earlier stage of development, such as Icosavax's nanoparticle vaccine construct.)
"Without the efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Covid-19 crisis would almost certainly be worse," writes Fast Company. "But its extensive role raises questions about how much we rely on philanthropy."

Their article includes this quote from a Northeastern University law professor focused on intellectual property rights and universal access to treatments for HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. "A fundamental question is, Well, because you have the money, should you be able to control the architecture of global health?"

A former director of vaccine delivery at the Gates Foundation counters that "they add value in helping to design very effective programs."