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Podcast: Beyond the Headlines
Episode: How Covid-19 mRNA research could cure HIV and cancer
Description: Within months of the emergence of coronavirus in late 2019 drug companies around the world were racing for a vaccine. Within a year, shots were being delivered into people’s arms. The speed at which the world developed not one but several different Covid-19 vaccines in seemingly record time has thrown into sharp relief other vaccine programmes that have toiled for years with no final breakthrough.
HIV, the virus that causes Aids, kills nearly 700,000 every year, but has outwitted vaccine developers for more than three decades. Even regular influenzas can be deadly and our tools to stop it are ve...