--- title: Moderna's Multi-Strain COVID-19 Vaccine Shows Real Promise description: Moderna published study data showing its new vaccine, which targets two different strains of SARS-CoV-2, is more effective than the original. canonical: https://time.com/6168232/multi-strain-covid-19-vaccines-moderna/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-04-19T15:56:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:08:25.103Z article:section: Health og:title: Multi-Strain COVID-19 Vaccines Might Be Coming. Moderna Reports Results of Its First Combination Shot og:description: Moderna published study data showing its new vaccine, which targets two different strains of SARS-CoV-2, is more effective than the original. og:url: https://time.com/6168232/multi-strain-covid-19-vaccines-moderna/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfb5ca2f9a81a64f/698a310eb3fce313540c92c6/GettyImages-1303673700.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: Covid-19 Vaccine og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Multi-Strain COVID-19 Vaccines Might Be Coming. Moderna Reports Results of Its First Combination Shot twitter:description: Moderna published study data showing its new vaccine, which targets two different strains of SARS-CoV-2, is more effective than the original. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbfb5ca2f9a81a64f/698a310eb3fce313540c92c6/GettyImages-1303673700.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Multi-Strain COVID-19 Vaccines Might Be Coming, After Moderna Reports Promising Study Results > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=62d683f4-bed6-423d-b197-1a1d60d26136&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Miracle Workers: The Scientists Behind The COVID-19 Vaccine [Watch (HLS stream): The Miracle Workers: The Scientists Behind The COVID-19 Vaccine](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BTNvQC2o.m3u8) (5:16)  _Published 2021-12-13. For those of us lucky enough to live in wealthy countries with access to these top-shelf vaccines, it has made all the difference. The miracle workers behind the COVID-19 vaccines are the TIME Heroes of the Year not only because they gave the world a defense against a pathogen, but also because the manner of that astonishing achievement guards more than our health: they channeled their ambitions to the common good, talked to one another and trusted in facts._  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Apr 19, 2022 3:56 PM UTC  Brasov, Romania - February 21, 2021: Doctor or scientist holding Moderna Covid-19 vaccine on a white background. Brasov, Romania - February 21, 2021: Doctor or scientist holding Moderna Covid-19 vaccine on a white background. Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Apr 19, 2022 3:56 PM UTC While U.S. health officials are still debating the best way forward when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine boosters, one thing was clear when experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) met for a [recent committee discussion:](https://time.com/6164976/covid-19-booster-shot-strategy/) to get longer-lasting and stronger immune responses, the next booster might have to target more than one strain of SARS-CoV-2\. That would make COVID-19 vaccines similar to the annual flu shot, which normally helps the body to generate immunity against up to three different influenza strains. On April 19, Moderna, which makes one of the two mRNA vaccines available in the U.S., [reported results](https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2022/Moderna-Announces-Clinical-Update-on-Bivalent-COVID-19-Booster-Platform/default.aspx) of the first such combination vaccine. The results were [published](https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1555201/v1) on a pre-print server and have not been peer-reviewed yet. In the study, which involved nearly 900 people who had been vaccinated with a primary series of two doses of Moderna’s original vaccine, received a booster of the new vaccine at least six months after the initial shots. About 300 people received a half-dose booster, and nearly 600 received a full dose of the new shot. The new vaccine contained equal amounts of viral genetic material that would help the body’s immune cells produce antibodies against both the original version of the virus and against Beta, one of several variants that have emerged over the past two years. Another 171 people served as the comparison group and received the original vaccine, at half the dose as the primary series, as a booster dose—as [currently recommended](https://time.com/6109275/cdc-panel-recommends-moderna-jj-boosters/) by the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall, the combination booster generated higher antibody responses than those produced by the original booster against not just the original virus strain but against others as well, including Delta and Omicron, even though the new vaccine did not target those and was designed to focus on Beta specifically. Such cross-reactivity is an encouraging sign that combining different strains may elicit a more robust immune response against a number of different variants. With respect to Omicron in particular, the new booster, at half the dose of the original primary series, containing genetic information from both the original virus and Beta variant generated more than twice as many antibodies compared to the original booster—even up to six months after the shot. The full dose generated more antibodies, but also slightly higher rates of adverse reactions. While antibodies contribute to only one type of immunity provided by vaccines, they are important for lowering the risk of getting infected with the virus, as well as reducing the chances of developing severe symptoms of COVID-19. The half dose of the new vaccine wasn’t associated with any more adverse events than the currently authorized half-dose booster against the original strain. The full dose of the new vaccine, however, was linked to a slightly higher risk of side effects, similar to the full dose of the original booster, reinforcing the company’s previous decision to request authorization of its original booster at half the dose of the primary series. While the results of the latest study are promising, Moderna is also studying a combination booster that targets Omicron and the original strain. Those results are expected later this spring. Given the prevalence of Omicron and its subvariant BA.2 around the world, the company’s scientists expect that the combined Omicron booster might be a stronger candidate for consideration as the U.S.’s next booster shot in the fall, but that decision won’t be made until the results of that study are available. ## Transcript Kind: captions Language: en I think vaccines are misunderstood, and maybe it's because it seems like magic. That simplicity and the mystery of it is something that ends up creating a lot of skepticism. People are fooled by the speed. Everything that we knew when it was time to design a vaccine for COVID-19, we knew for so long, but the public had just become aware of it. If this would happen two years ago, we would not be ready. Saying that it happened overnight, it took two, three decades, at least. 2021 was the year when so many praised the miracle of vaccine development. In science, there is hardly ever a simple, quick fix. But this was truly a moment of the right fix - a brand new kind of vaccine technology - at exactly the right time. I started out in math, and I moved to biology. And after medical school, I saw one of the first cases of HIV in Tennessee back in 1982. And so the first part of my career was trying to understand the immunology of vaccine-enhanced disease and trying to make vaccines safer. I got interested in science when I was 16 years old. I was hooked on the idea that you could go to work and discover something that no one else in the world knows on any given day. It seems at 16, I thought that maybe I will be a scientist. I was always working with mRNA, I mean for 30 years at least. And I never wanted to develop a vaccine. I wanted to develop it for therapy. When I first came to Penn from the NIH, pure luck hit where I met Kati Karikó over a Xerox machine. And she told me she worked on RNA, and she could help us with our vaccine. Every experiment doesn't work, every hypothesis isn't good. It was a continuous flow of negative feedback. But we saw the potential of the RNA and neither of us would give up. Although mRNA can teach our cells to fight infection, it took doctors Karikó and Weissman 16 years to figure out how to use it safely in a vaccine. First when I made this RNA, actually I did not tell Drew Weissman, my colleague, because I thought that maybe I mixed up something. So I repeated the experiment and we could see that there was no inflammation in human cells. We're both scientists. We're not baseball players who cheer when we hit a homerun. We knew that it had great potential. But what we thought about is what are we going to do with it? Meanwhile, doctors Corbett and Graham spent years unlocking the structural secrets of viruses. One of the really important problems in coronaviruses that had not been solved is really simple. What does the coronavirus really look like to the immune system? And to figure that out, you have to be able to take a really high definition picture of the proteins that are on the surface of the coronavirus. And then do some protein engineering to stabilize the structure. At that moment, you realize that you have almost what is a universal strategy for creating a vaccine for coronaviruses. A mysterious respiratory illness with similarities to SARS has healthcare workers around the world on alert. What we said to each other, all's we need is a sequence and we're ready to go. We can make a vaccine in weeks and get it into people very quickly. The fact that we made a vaccine in 10 months, and has the potential to end this pandemic, will certainly stand out. "Do it mama!" (laughter) Most scientists never get to see a product actually used. And to watch the evening news and see the relief on healthcare providers getting immunized, those were special moments. I also get emotional when I got a letter from an elderly home, and they reported that they received the vaccine. There were like 200 elderly in that home. And nobody died. On social media, when children were going back to visiting their grandparents again. Seeing people reunited in that way, it was a very surreal moment. A surreal moment, and definitely worth celebrating, if only briefly before a return to work. These scientists are now trying to apply their game-changing discoveries to other diseases. Influenza, even cancer. 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