Thank you for joining us.

Now, lots of talk about how this can be contained.

But let's talk about a cure because you've been working on a potential vaccine.

Tell us more about that.

Yes.

So one of the really good news parts of, uh, the scientific endeavors in this space is that the scientists in Wuhan shared the genetic sequence of this virus really very quickly, and that's allowed people around the world to access that and start designing vaccines.

And we're one of a number of groups globally that a using that information to put into a vaccine candidate as quickly as possible.

We're working on the in the laboratory, and we'll have it in animal models by the middle of next month.

That's quite a speed, I imagine.

Vaccines don't come about this quickly.

Usually, no.

I mean, if you put it if you contrast it with the Ebola vaccine that we've heard a lot about recently that took 10 years to develop before it even went into human studies on and then it took two years to test within humans.

We've kind of changed the technology and other groups as well to use genetic sequence to engineer a vaccine so it could be injected into your muscle on express just a part of the virus to induce an immune response.

We could accelerate that into human studies were called upon to do that within a matter of months, you've touched upon it there.

But in layman's terms, how would you go about creating a vaccine?

I mean, what are the steps that you need to take right?

So there are several different approaches to developing a vaccine approach that the wheel developing because it's the fastest approach, is to use the genetic code that encodes a proportion of the vaccine.

What we call the envelope spike on.

That's the part of the virus that antibodies latch onto and prevent it from infecting cells.

Now there are other, more complex ways of making vaccines that might give you a longer term immune response, and people are working on those as well.

The rial factor here is time.

It takes time to do this.

We can get to humans within a matter of months, but that's just to check the safety and immunogen Isett e start testing.

Whether it works will probably not happen until this coming winter on.

Then it may be globally available.

Okay, So the key question there is what if the outbreak is controlled by them, So if it's controlled by them, that's good news.

I mean, essentially, we hope that it will be controlled by the steps that the Chinese government is taking in place on but will be good news.

But we also need contingency in case is not controlled and it becomes a global pandemic.

And you said that you know, the only kind of group working on a vaccine, How does how does this industry work?

You've got a problem.

The authorities release information.

Is it then a industrial race to see who can create this vaccine?

Well, it works a little bit like that.

I mean, there are certainly groups like my own group who are already prepared to look for outbreak infections and step up to the mark.

There are a number of commercial companies that are also interested in doing this, but not because of profit margins.

There's probably no profit to be made in an outbreak infection.

It's all about speed on making it available, so it's more due to humanitarian considerations.

Okay, just what's the key question that you've been asking as an expert in terms of vaccine development?

What type off immune response is required to give us sterilizing protection against infection?

Robin, A Chateau Professor Robin Shattuck from Imperial College, London.

Good to get your expertise.

Thank you.