The UCI Vaccine R&D Center is supported by the NIH to develop vaccine and vaccine adjuvants for infectious diseases. There is an emphasis on Pandemic Preparedness. The lab is equiped with all of the science, equipment and know-how to construct and test lipid nanoparticle (LNP) vaccines of the kind that are in the COVID vaccines from Moderna and BioNTech. The same mRNA/LNP technology developed for the COVID vaccine is also applicable to gene therapy and gene editing.