[6] The results were published online on February 19, 2020, in Science,[16] one of the world's top academic journals, and was highlighted on the cover of the 13 March 2020 print edition.

[18] Aubree Gordon, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan who was not a part of the study was quoted by LiveScience as saying: "It's a very important step forward and may help in the development of a vaccine against SARS-COV-2.

[11] When a person is vaccinated with mRNA-1273, their own cells should theoretically produce these modified spike proteins, triggering their immune systems to develop antibodies against the actual coronavirus.

[22] McLellan—along with his team members Daniel Wrapp and Nianshuang Wang, plus Barney Graham and Kizzmekia Corbett at NIAID's Vaccine Research Center—engineered the spike protein to stay in its initial shape so it can be recognized.

[16] This, combined with Moderna's technology that uses messenger RNA to encode information about the virus, allows mRNA-1273 to trigger an immune response in vaccinated subjects.

[11] The stabilized spike protein developed by McLellan and his colleagues forms the basis of three COVID-19 vaccines that received emergency use authorization in the U.S.[7][15] In May, 2020, he published[23] a new version of the stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike protein called HexaPro that is currently being used as the basis for a new vaccine, NDV-HXP-S, which is undergoing trials in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam.

[37][38][39] In a phase 1 clinical trial, DS-Cav1 was shown to be safe and to elicit "a robust boost in RSV F-specific antibodies and neutralising activity that was sustained above baseline for at least 44 weeks", according to a study published in April 2021 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

[40] The first FDA-approved RSV vaccine, AREXVY (developed by GSK plc), uses a version of this antigen and was approved in May 2023 for adults aged 60 and older by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).