Shutting down emerging Coronaviruses in humans now and in the future
In December 2019, a pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, China. This disease is now named COVID-19. Over 73,000 people have been infected worldwide and over 1,700 people have died from the disease. There is no sign that the rate of new infections and deaths are levelling off or showing signs of declining. Similar coronavirus outbreaks in the future are always a risk and must be addressed now. The goal of this proposal is to establish and test an effective vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. In addition, we will develop a coronavirus vaccine bank containing hundreds to thousands of potential vaccines that can be used at the start of the next coronavirus outbreak. This will give us a head start in trying to treat patients early with the goal of reducing the spread of the disease and subsequent fatalities.
