Just told need another day before going home. Anyway: “ While treatment and testing are vital to an effective pandemic response, a vaccine is critical for ending it. Eric von Hofe, President of NuGenerex Immuno-Oncology (formerly Antigen Express), also says NIH Small Business Program funding laid the foundation for their ability to respond to COVID-19. His company is developing a coronavirus vaccine with hopes to start clinical trials in 3-5 months. The company has experience developing vaccines for HIV and influenza as well as for SARS, the coronavirus that infected more than 8,000 people in 2003.

For the novel coronavirus, NuGenerex is developing what’s known as a peptide vaccine—small portions of the virus that will evoke an immune response, which teaches the body to recognize the virus in the event of an infection. To find the best peptide for the job, the company used a computer algorithm to identify about 30 peptide candidates, and then altered them to increase their potency. The team plans to test the most promising peptide candidates by measuring the immune response they elicit in blood samples from recovered individuals. The final candidate can then be scaled up quickly because the peptides are synthesized, not harvested.”

https://sbir.nih.gov/successstories/covid19