It’s official. Elon Musk is going to Germany. The trip’s purpose will be to review an effort by Tesla to engineer a new type of vaccine. One that is printed. It’s an ongoing effort with ‘CureVac,’ a German biopharmaceutical company. Work on the project is being held at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Berlin.
Earlier in 2020, Elon Musk announced that Tesla had partnered up with CureVac on a COVID-19 vaccine that is based on their technology, which focuses on using RNA (basically one of DNA) to combat the virus. Ingmar Hoerr, CureVac’s CEO, revealed that Tesla would be ‘building RNA micro-factories for CureVac.’
Tesla is making an advanced RNA printing system and will deploy it around the globe. Like DNA, RNA is found within all forms of life on this planet, and German biotech firm CureVac has been able to get the molecule to be stable enough to use it as a delivery mechanism in the fight against disease.
Many may be surprised to see Tesla getting into the biotech industry, but this is nothing new. Tesla was getting into biotech even long before COVID-19. Tesla filed a patent application jointly with CureVac through the electric car maker’s Grohmann division in Germany.
Elon will be going to Germany in a few days to check out the project’s progress. The trip is not all about biotech, though. While he is there, Elon also will be checking in on how the berlin-based Gigafactoring is doing overall.
CurVac had already been working on ways to cure several different strains of the flu, so once the coronavirus pandemic hit, their focus has been aimed squarely at COVID-19. The company is currently in phase 1 of their clinical trial.
CureVac will be working directly with Tesla in order to swiftly deploy systems known as ‘RNA printers’ that will make the drug available en masse.
CureVac CEO went on to say that ‘Tesla Germany designed and built the vaccine RNA printers for CureVac, but, subject to some CureVac IP, they could be made for other companies too.’
So, Musk is going to Germany.
