On August 30, 2020, Elon Musk stated on Twitter that he would be traveling to Germany to work on not only a production plant for Tesla vehicles, but also potential vaccines for COVID-19.
According to Teslarati, Musk’s main objective for the trip is to visit Tesla’s Giga Berlin production plant, but will also be meeting with executives from biopharmaceutical company CureVac to discuss building RNA factories.
That & Giga Berlin are why I’m headed to Germany this week. Conversations with Harvard epidemiology confirmed that a high-speed RNA printer has potential be helpful for vaccines & cures in many areas.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2020
In a tweet on August 30, Musk said that “conversations with Harvard Epidemiology confirmed that a high-speed RNA printer has potential [to] be helpful for vaccines & cures in many areas.”
Tesla and CureVac have already agreed to a partnership back in July 2020 that would entail creating portable RNA printers to help with the COVID-19 recovery effort.
CureVac has garnered support for this possible solution to the pandemic, as they’ve already been given a grant of $34 million from the Coalition for Emergency Preparedness. This grant was originally to be used to create vaccines for Lassa fever, yellow fever, and rabies, according to Teslarati. It would seem now, however, that this money will be put toward the more immediate threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
