Global health R&D at work in New Hampshire
A technology developed at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth was critical to the development of COVID-19 vaccines. In partnership with the US National Institutes of Health and other collaborators, in 2016, Dartmouth scientists figured out a method to stabilize the spike protein of coronaviruses so it could be used as an antigen—the immune-inducing element—in vaccines. This discovery was instrumental in enabling the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The technology was licensed to Moderna and BioNTech, the developers of the first-to-market vaccines used in the United States, as well as other vaccine companies, for use in creating their shots. Dartmouth now plans to reinvest the revenue generated from this technology into furthering other global health research.