Matt and Dara are joined by Vox's Dylan Matthews to talk about what the Covid vaccine development process has taught us vaccine development, production, and regulation. They also discuss the way we fund scientific research, evaluating a possible "prize"-based alternative to our current grant-funding system, and some research is analyzed that concerns the resiliency of so-called "forced entrepreneurs," and their businesses' tendency to better weather recessions.

Resources:

"How to supercharge vaccine production for the next pandemic" by Dylan Matthews (May 20; Vox)

"Inside Moderna: The Covid Vaccine Front-Runner With No Track Record and an Unsparing CEO" by Peter Loftus and Gregory Zuckerman (July 1, 2020; Wall Street Journal)

"The story of mRNA: How a once-dismissed idea became a leading technology in the Covid vaccine race" by Damian Garde and Jonathan Saltzman (Nov. 10, 2020; STAT News)

"Science funding is a mess. Could grant lotteries make it better?" by Kelsey Piper (Jan. 18, 2019; Vox)

White paper

Hosts:

Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias), Slowboring.com

Dara Lind (@DLind), Immigration Reporter, ProPublica

Dylan Matthews (@dylanmatt), Senior Correspondent, Vox

Credits:

Erikk Geannikis, Editor and Producer

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