Clinical Trial of COVID-19 Vaccine Begins in Seattle

The first volunteer will receive a shot of the synthetic RNA vaccine today.

Amy Schleunes

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The first participant in a clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine conducted by the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle will be given an experimental dose today (March 16), reports the Associated Press. The trial is being funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and includes 45 young, healthy volunteers who will receive different doses of the vaccine that was co-developed by the NIH and Moderna.

Worldwide, dozens of research groups are attempting to develop coronavirus vaccines. These groups are pursuing different types of vaccines, some of which use new technologies that may make the immunization both faster to produce and more potent against the virus. Some researchers are also pursuing temporary vaccines that could offer protection for a few months as longer-lasting alternatives are developed.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals plans to test its vaccine on volunteers at the University of Pennsylvania and at a ...

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Meet the Author

Amy Schleunes
A former intern at The Scientist, Amy studied neurobiology at Cornell University and later earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa. She is a Los Angeles–based writer, editor, and communications strategist who collaborates on nonfiction books for Harper Collins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and also teaches writing at Johns Hopkins University CTY. Her favorite projects involve sharing the insights of science and medicine.
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