NIH Director Talks Vaccines, Virus Mutation and Clinical Trials

Several vaccines will likely be needed to combat the coronavirus and immunize groups of people in America and abroad, U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said in an interview.

Collins, 70, is a physician and geneticist who leads the agency overseeing the U.S. research response to the pandemic. He discussed efforts to develop and manufacture a vaccine, potential mutations and what they mean for immunity, and how inoculations would be tested.

“My expectation is, and I am a bit of an optimist, that we don’t find out that there’s only one of these vaccines that works, but rather ...