On Mar. 24, 2021, Virginia Tech researchers announced that their candidate Coronavirus vaccines, prevented pigs from becoming ill with a pig Coronavirus, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). The researchers published their findings in the preprint server BioRXIV.

The new vaccine-production platform involved synthesizing DNA that directs the production of a piece of the virus that can instruct the immune system how to mount a protective immune response against a virus.