- Trevor Keller: UW-Madison's Influenza Research Institute
is working with Madison startup FluGen to create CoroFlu,
a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
The work is led by renowned professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka.
Peter Halfmann isn't working directly on the vaccine,
but is a lead researcher in Kawaoka's lab.
He says the urgency of the pandemic
creates an extra challenge.
- Just the fact that you know, this does take us
a good 5, 6, 10 years to do for just in the normal situation,
just because there's a lot of trial and error.
- Trevor: Scientists are taking material
from the coronavirus spike protein
and using it to modify FluGen's existing flu vaccine.
- So we're using like the backbone of the flu vaccine.
So the internal kind of hardware.
And then we're just modifying the surface of the vaccine now.
Instead of having the proteins for influenza,
we're having now the proteins for coronavirus on the surface.
- Trevor: The result would be a dual-purpose vaccine
for the flu and COVID-19.
If all goes well, CoroFlu will start human trials
in the first half of 2021.
It's a three-phase process, where the vaccine is given
to progressively larger groups of people.
If it's proven safe and effective,
it can be mass-produced.
- We're gonna probably want two or three good vaccines
out there because no company alone is gonna be able to meet
domestic and international demand for this vaccine.
It's just, it's too big of a task for just one company.
- Trevor: A biotech company in India has already agreed
to mass-produce CoroFlu.
Halfmann warns that while scientists around the world
are making progress against the virus,
the finish line is far away.
- I think there's gonna be great advances
by the end of this year come December,
but I don't think there's gonna be something where
you can go to Walgreens and get a vaccine by December of 2020.
No.
Reporting from Madison for Here & Now,
I'm Trevor Keller.