“It isn’t going to be possible for us to truly be able to return to normal until we have a vaccine,” says Winston Timp, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering, and who, along with Professor of Medicine Stuart Ray, is leading the Hopkins viral genomics effort. “The low mutation rate of the virus means it should be possible to generate a successful vaccine,” he says, adding it also could boost efforts to develop potential treatments for the disease.

Coronaviruses—of which there are hundreds, most of them occurring in animals—typically mutate more slowly than many other viruses. Influenza, for example, mutates quickly, which is why people must be inoculated annually against changing flu strains.

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