On Mar. 27, 2020, Emory’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit (VTEU) announced participation in a clinical trial testing a vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19, the first such vaccine to be tested in the U.S.

The goals of the Phase I study, which began on March 16 at the VTEU at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, were to test whether the investigational vaccine is safe, and how much it stimulates the immune system. If the vaccine was found to be safe, future studies will examine whether it can prevent infection.