Inside STAT: To develop a coronavirus vaccine, synthetic biologists try to outdo nature

SCIENTISTS IN WASHINGTON ARE USING SOFTWARE TO MODEL NEW VACCINES, INCLUDING ONE TO PREVENT INFECTION WITH THE NEW CORONAVIRUS. (IAN HAYDON/INSTITUTE FOR PROTEIN DESIG)

While some scientists are racing to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus using established techniques, others are turning to synthetic biology to help answer the urgent call for a vaccine. That's because even the most cutting-edge vaccines have some pitfalls: They take years to develop and manufacture, the pathogen they aim to combat may evolve and render the vaccine obsolete, and the immune response these vaccines induce can still be weak. Synthetic biology is such an integral part of the push for a vaccine against the virus that causes Covid-19 that President Trump's visit to the NIH last week to look at their vaccine efforts included showing him a mock-up of what the technology can do: Designing protein nanoparticles with viral molecules attached in a repetitive array so that, when the whole thing is packed into a vaccine, it can make people resistant to the new coronavirus. STAT's Sharon Begley has more here.