UW-Madison researchers and the vaccine companies FluGen and Bharat Biotech are developing and testing a vaccine against COVID-19 called CoroFlu, they announced Thursday.
CoroFlu will build on FluGen’s flu vaccine candidate known as M2SR. That vaccine, based on research by UW-Madison virologists and FluGen co-founders Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Gabriele Neumann, is a self-limiting version of the influenza virus that can induce an immune response against the flu.
Kawaoka’s lab plans to insert gene sequences from SARS-CoV-2, the official name of the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, into M2SR so that the new vaccine will also induce immunity against the coronavirus, according to a UW-Madison statement.