How engineers shrunk the vaccine plant

The article discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant bottlenecks in vaccine production, which was largely centralized in high-income countries, leaving regions like Africa heavily dependent on imports. To address this, engineers are developing compact, modular, and automated mRNA manufacturing hubs that can be deployed regionally. These distributed hubs convert raw materials into mRNA vaccines and lipid nanoparticles through continuous processes, enabling faster, localized production that reduces delivery delays, simplifies logistics, and enhances pandemic responsiveness. This decentralized approach allows countries to manufacture tailored vaccine doses on-site within weeks rather than waiting months for imports, as exemplified by a Rwandan hub that eliminated a typical six-week shipping delay. Regional hubs also mitigate issues related to vaccine nationalism and supply chain vulnerabilities by creating resilient networks of production nodes. For instance, South Africa’s WHO mRNA Hub (Afrigen) supports training and production across Africa, enabling local adaptation of mRNA technology to address endemic diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. The modular design allows easy switching of RNA