Some scientists say it could be more effective than the vaccines coming out right now. However, we might have to wait a while.
Pfizer and Moderna are both first-generation COVID-19 vaccines.
“They’re going to help us get through the pandemic, at least in terms of getting off the ground, getting back to some sort of normalcy,” Said Balaji Narasimhan with Iowa State University. “But they’re not perfect.”
That’s why when COVID-19 hit the U.S., the Nanovaccine Institute at ISU shifted its focus from the flu. What they’re developing here is set to solve the limitations of today’s coronavirus vaccines.
Unlike other coronavirus vaccines, the nanovaccine under development at this Iowa State lab will be needle-free, it’ll only be one dose and it won’t need refrigeration.
Narasimhan explained, “That means I can take the nanovaccine vial, put it on a shelf in front of me, come back in a year, pick it up, and it’ll still work.”
With the help of $2 million in federal CARES Act funding, they’re collaborating with researchers at other institutions to create a vaccine you can sniff.
“Our hope is for those clinical trials to begin sometime in the next 12 months,” Narasimhan said. “And once those clinical trials are complete, then we would be able to have a product.”
Researchers said advances in nanotechnology and medicine will formulate a treatment that will ultimately transform human life.
Narasimhan said, “This is why we wake up and come to work every morning right, is for the opportunity to do things that can help save lives, that can help better humanity.”
Researchers think the new vaccine is about a year-and-a-half away if everything goes according to plan.
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