On Mar. 16, 2020, the National Institutes of Health (NIH announced that a Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating an investigational vaccine designed to protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had begun at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle.

The National Institutes of Health funded the trial. KPWHRI is part of NIAID’s Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium. The open-label trial will enroll 45 healthy adult volunteers ages 18 to 55 years over approximately 6 weeks. The first participant received the investigational vaccine.