Professor Luke O’Neill has hailed 'exciting' developments on a variant-resistant Covid vaccine that is being tested in America.
The professor of biochemistry at Trinity College said he expects data from the phase one trial on humans to be published very soon.
And if trials prove to be successful, the vaccine could be in use in Ireland as soon as the end of this year.
The US Army is developing the single-shot jab that is said to work against all Covid and SARS variants.
Test results on animals have been “remarkable”, according to Prof O'Neill and he said they are now waiting with "bated breath" to see if it has the same effect on humans.
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Prof Luke O'Neill told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny on Thursday morning that the vaccine could be in use in Ireland by the autumn.
He said: "We're waiting with bated breath - so that's definitely the one that's the most exciting, the universal COVID vaccine.
"I thought the data would be out by now, by the way.
"Now this could be the answer - there's at least nine universal vaccines in development.
"But the US Army have got very interesting technology, they're using these nano-particles - very high tech.
"And the efficacy in the animals was remarkable, so we'll see now if that's going to work in humans.
"That could be the one that will become the vaccine we'll use here, for instance, in autumn maybe if all the trials work out."
