In last week’s presidential debate, President Donald Trump claimed that the United States is only weeks away from a COVID-19 vaccine—a timeline at odds with some of the top scientists in his administration, who have suggested a vaccine won’t be available for months.
Most experts on the intricacies of the drug development process agree that the Food and Drug Administration probably won’t approve a vaccine until the end 2020 or early 2021, says Mansoor Amiji, University Distinguished Professor of pharmaceutical sciences and chemical engineering at Northeastern.
A vaccine trains people’s immune systems to recognize and fight off an infection. Vaccines for COVID-19 use a compound based on the spike proteins that adorn SARS-CoV-2 like the Sun’s corona. Those proteins help the virus bind to human cells.
“That part of the viral molecule is enough to cause an immune response, but certainly it doesn’t have any infective potential, so it will not harm the patient,” Amiji says. “Ultimately, the spike protein is what is going to cause the immune cells to produce antibodies and to protect the host from the infection.”
