Timetable For A Vaccine Against The New Coronavirus? Maybe This Fall

Right now scientists are trying to accomplish something that was inconceivable a decade ago: create a vaccine against a previously unknown virus rapidly enough to help end an outbreak of that virus. In this case, they're trying to stop the spread of the new coronavirus that has already infected tens of thousands of people, mainly in China, and given rise to a respiratory condition now known as COVID-19.

Typically, making a new vaccine takes a decade or longer. But new genetic technologies and new strategies make researchers optimistic that they can shorten that timetable to months, and possibly weeks — and have a tool by the fall that can slow the spread of infection.

What's the urgency?

"Vaccines are really our most successful tool to prevent an infectious disease," says David Weiner, executive vice president and director of the Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia.

It used to take a long time to make vaccines, because scientists had to isolate and grow the virus in the lab. But now, it's possible to skip that step altogether and build a vaccine based on a virus' genetic sequence.