Front-Runners Emerge in the Race for a Covid-19 Vaccine

With the news, Moderna pulls neck and neck with the current coronavirus vaccine leader: Oxford University’s Jenner Institute. Scientists there had a head start, as The New York Times reported last month. Having already acquired safety data from human trials of similar vaccines for the related coronavirus that causes MERS, Oxford researchers convinced British regulators to push forward with a large Phase II study involving 6,000 people while the outbreak in the UK is still raging. The vaccine is based on a technology that involves genetically modifying a harmless virus to create a SARS-CoV-2 look-alike that doesn’t cause disease but does trigger an immune response. Wired