A century ago, on July 26, 1916, a viral disease swept through New York. Within 24 hours, new cases of polio increased by more than 68%. The outbreak killed more than 2,000 people in New York City alone. Across the United States, polio took the lives of about 6,000 people in 1916, leaving thousands more paralyzed.

Although scientists had already identified the polio virus, it took 50 more years to develop a vaccine. That vaccine eradicated polio in the US in less than a decade. Vaccines are one of the most effective modern disease-fighting tools.

As of this writing, the fast-spreading COVID-19 has already infected almost half a million worldwide, and has killed over 22,000 patients. There is an urgent need for a vaccine to prevent it from infecting and killing millions more. But traditional vaccine development takes, on average, 16 years.

So how can scientists quickly develop a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2?