Scientists were close to a coronavirus vaccine years ago. Then the money dried up.

“We just could not generate much interest,” a researcher said of the difficulty in getting funding to test the vaccine in humans.

Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital’s Center for Vaccine Development in Houston, at his lab in 2012.

HOUSTON — Dr. Peter Hotez says he made the pitch to anyone who would listen. After years of research, his team of scientists in Texas had helped develop a vaccine to protect against a deadly strain of coronavirus. Now they needed money to begin testing it in humans. read more