The lab of David B. Weiner, PhD, reports that a novel synthetic DNA vaccine can, for the first time, induce protective immunity against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus in animal species. These promising results support further development of DNA vaccines for emerging infections. The study "a synthetic consensus anti–spike protein DNA vaccine induces protective immunity against Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in nonhuman primates" was published in Science Translational Medicine this week.
Read the Department of Communications news release.
Update 9/23/15: PBS Nova coverage on MERS.