When postdoctoral associate Zhenhao Fang and PhD candidate Valter Monteiro MED ’25 at the Yale School of Medicine began studying mRNA vaccines, they ran into an unexpected challenge: their results weren’t consistent. The problem lay inside the cell itself. Instead of reaching the cell surface, where the immune system could recognize it, the vaccine was getting stuck in the cytoplasm. Without reaching the surface, the vaccine could not trigger the immune response that prepares the body to fight infection.
To solve this problem, Fang designed a new approach: the modular vaccine platform (MVP). He describes it as a kind of passport for the vaccine—a signal that tells the cell it is cleared to move to the surface. When attached to the mRNA vaccine, the MVP increased its ability to reach the cell surface and trained the immune system more effectively.
This innovation could expand the reach of mRNA technology far beyond infectious diseases. “The MVP can be used not only for viral vaccines but also for cancer,” Monteiro said. “The expression and the translocation is also a problem for mRNA vaccines for cancer.”
By improving both expression and movement within the cell, the MVP has the potential to make vaccines more reliable, whether they target viruses or cancer cells. For Fang and Monteiro, the project is a reminder that sometimes progress in science comes not from changing the big picture, but from solving a bottleneck at the molecular level.