Elon Musk confirmed that he is going to Germany to review Tesla’s effort to build a new kind of vaccine printer with Curevac and the progress at Gigafactory Berlin.
Earlier this year, Musk announced that Tesla has become the manufacturing partner for biotech firm CureVac who is working on a COVID-19 vaccine based on their RNA technology.
The CEO announced that Tesla would be “building RNA micro-factories for CureVac,” a Germany-based company.
It was surprising since it’s a completely different sector than electric vehicles or renewable energy.
But as we previously reported, Tesla had been working with CureVac since last year — prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Tesla filed a joint patent with CureVac on a possibly revolutionary “bioreactor for RNA.”
Now Musk says that he is going to Germany this week to review the project, along with Tesla’s progress at Gigafactory Berlin:
Tesla would be making a automated system for RNA printing and deploy it around the world.
RNA is a molecule found within all forms of cellular life, and it has been described as a sister molecule to DNA.
CureVac has found a way to stabilize the molecule and have it deliver ways to fight specific diseases to the body.
Since the company had been working to cure other flu strains, it turned its focus onto COVID-19 amid the pandemic and they are currently in their first phase of the clinical trial:
If successful, they would be working with Tesla to rapidly deploy manufacturing systems, sometimes referred to as RNA printers, to make the drug widely available.
The CEO said that Tesla’s team “designed and built” the machine for CureVac:
“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”
Musk is apparently going to meet with the team in Germany.
He said that his visit is also related to Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin, which is currently under construction and has shown great progress recently with several buildings coming up based on recent drone videos:
Tesla aims to start production of the Model Y at the new factory in July of 2021.
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