San Diego lab discovers COVID-19 vaccine in 3 hours

I'd bet the headline is overly optimistic but if you watch the video it is representative of how this stuff is done (source: I am not a biologist but do bioinformatics work at UH Cancer Center and like to spend time in the wetlab observing the bench scientists doing this type of work).

It's at the very least impressive how they can go from sequence transmitted over the internet to synthesis and testing on animals in hours. That's the kind of integrated process we need to have to beat things like this.

I'd be (very pleasantly) surprised if the vaccine turns out to be effective, but this is still worth a watch for the process that they are doing. If you are not in the field this gives a decent sense of what it is like. (Caveat: I've only worked in one lab, so for all I know both mine and this one are far behind the times in terms of cutting edge, but it seems legit to me).

From 2 days ago: Vaccine for new coronavirus 'COVID-19' could be ready in 18 months: WHO

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-vaccine-...