PopVax's Broadly Protective COVID Vaccine Enters First-in-Human Trial, Will Be Open-Sourced
rishabh16_ · x · 2026-10-12
Vitalik Buterin amplifies PopVax's announcement: its broadly protective COVID-19 vaccine candidate PVX-001 dosed its first participants in a Phase I trial in Melbourne on August 31, 2026. Of 36 planned volunteers, 14 have been dosed with no serious adverse events as of October 6.
The vaccine is built on a full-stack in-house pipeline: computational protein design, mRNA-encoded VLP display, a fridge-stable LNP using novel ionizable lipid PVXL-150, and in-house manufacturing in Hyderabad.
After Phase I concludes, PopVax will open-source the design and manufacturing information and won't enforce IP against anyone making betacoronavirus vaccines. The project is funded by Vitalik and Balvi, aiming to save a million lives per year over the next decade.
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