Governments around the world are betting billions on new COVID-19 vaccine candidates. The World Health Organization is tracking more than 170 potential candidates. 11 are now believed to be in final Phase III trials.
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Developers are taking different approaches to the virus. TGen in Arizona is working with the City of Hope research and treatment center on a potential vaccine. Their vaccine candidate targets a small region of the virus' now infamous spike protein.
"We all get exposed to coronavirus' every day, but these are not the dangerous ones, these are the common cold coronavirus and we have some evidence that some of these regions are very similar between the pandemic virus and the common cold viruses," says TGen vaccine researcher Dr. John Altin.
Dr. Altin says what scientists still don't know is how different individual's immune systems will respond to a new vaccine. But he's confident that any vaccine that is ultimately approved will be safe and effective and certainly far safer than catching COVID-19.
