This spring, as supply of COVID-19 vaccines began to exceed demand in the United States, Maria Elena Bottazzi fielded texts from people in Honduras, where she grew up. There, many were desperately seeking the kind of immunizations that sat unused in Houston, where Bottazzi is co-director of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.
Five years ago, a team led by Bottazzi and her lab co-director, Peter Hotez, developed a vaccine for SARS, caused by a coronavirus similar to that which causes COVID-19, which they believe could have also been effective against the novel disease. But they couldn’t get funding for clinical trials, and it languished in a
