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Audio Interview

SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development

Published on March 18, 2020   9 min

A selection of talks on Vaccines

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Interviewer: Professor Plotkin, thank you very much for taking the time to record this interview with us on the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development. The efforts to develop a vaccine for the SARS-CoV-2 started really on the 10th of January with the Chinese Center for Disease Control releasing the complete genome sequence of the virus to public databases. How far have we come since then in the development of a vaccine? Prof. Plotkin: Indeed, the publication of the genome sequence did enable many different organizations to start vaccine development and the list now extends to a couple of dozen candidate vaccines that are in the process of being developed, and as you may have heard, the first trials have begun. The Phase 1 trial has begun with a messenger RNA vaccine. But, in addition, there are many other candidates that are going to start clinical testing soon. A critical part of the response is organized by an organization called CEPI, which is the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation. This organization is funded by governments and foundations and has about six different candidate vaccines against SARS-2 already in development and on the way to clinical testing.