Comment on Origins of COVID-19 vaccines can be traced to University of Iowa research

Back in the early 2000s, in an unassuming lab at the heart of the University of Iowa Health Care campus, researchers Stanley Perlman and Paul McCray embarked on the low-profile work of making a genetically-modified mouse capable of contracting SARS — a severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by a coronavirus spreading at the time.They succeeded in creating a mouse with the human “ACE-2” receptor — and in doing so paved the way for the very high-profile historic achievement of our time: Developing in under a year a vaccine for a similar coronavirus that causes COVID-19.“It turns out ACE-2 was the same receptor for SARS-CoV-2,” McCray said.