> Does this mean that the research basically was about creating sort of like a "template" vaccine that can then be specialised or programmed with the specifics of the thing you're trying to vaccinate against?
That may (or may not) have been the effect (at least within a narrow family of similar viruses), and is definitely something they market about their “mRNA platform”, but their immediately-previous mRNA vaccine work which was ongoing when they shifted to SARS-CoV-2, was specifically directed at MERS-CoV, another very similar betacoronavirus of significant public health impact (though a lot less widespread than SARS-CoV-2 has become.)
That may (or may not) have been the effect (at least within a narrow family of similar viruses), and is definitely something they market about their “mRNA platform”, but their immediately-previous mRNA vaccine work which was ongoing when they shifted to SARS-CoV-2, was specifically directed at MERS-CoV, another very similar betacoronavirus of significant public health impact (though a lot less widespread than SARS-CoV-2 has become.)