Coronavirus Cripples Communist China, But US Lab Needed Only 3 Hours To Find Vaccine: Report
US Lab Says It Found Coronavirus Vaccine in 3 Hours
Volume 90%
By Andrew J. Sciascia
Published February 14, 2020 at 2:21pm
A team of San Diego laboratory scientists has reportedly created a vaccine for the coronavirus, or COVID-19, and in potentially record-breaking time.
According to Fox Business, the scientists, operating at a satellite location of Pennsylvania-based American biotech company Inovio Pharmaceuticals, discovered and tested the successful vaccine within three hours of receiving a full overview of the virus’ genetic composition.
“We were able to rapidly construct our vaccine in a matter of about three hours once we had the DNA sequence from the virus available because of the power of our DNA medicine platform,” Inovio president and CEO Dr. J. Joseph Kim told the outlet.
“Our goal is to start phase one human testing in the U.S. early this summer.”
Now, the race is on for the innovators at Inovio to move into the human testing phase and begin working with partners to mass produce its vaccine for international markets.
Kim’s company, which has been responsible this past decade for speedy turnarounds on vaccines for both the MERS virus — a coronavirus strain he referred to as being “in the same family as COVID-19” — and the more recent Zika virus outbreak, is looking to dramatically reduce its typical research, development and production time in response to the world’s latest emerging public health threat.
“We’ve done this many, many times before,” Kim said. “We’re planning to beat our own record.”