University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre (VIDO-InterVac) team has seen promising results in their clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine.
The team began research in early January, starting the day the World Health Organization (WHO) announced there was a new disease spreading in China.
They started by finding a sequence for SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, before designing a vaccine for it. The vaccine has been tested on ferrets and hamsters. “For respiratory diseases in general, they’re a very good model,” USask VIDO-InterVac director and CEO Volker Gerdts explained. “For this one, the virus uses receptors to get into the O cells and the receptors in ferrets are