Deaths. The chinese city of wuhan locked down, more than 600 infected. And its spreading fast. Fear it could spread further. It was over there, in china, where frankly theyve had a lot of outbreaks over the years. China has reported 136 cases of the bird flu. Emergence of the h10 strain follows that of the fatal h7 and 9 strain last year. In chinas desperate bid to control the latest bird flu virus. But this was no bird flu. And the world soon began to take notice. Penicillin was discovered here in 1928. It revolutionized medicine. Today, researchers here from Imperial College are working for another radical breakthrough. I think technology that completely changes the way vaccines are being made and covid19 is allowing us to try this technology. Back in january, professor robin shaddock was watching the news coming out of china with growing concern. At that stage, it wasnt a pandemic. It was an outbreak. At that stage when youve got a few thousand cases, it could be a blip, it could go away. Why did you think that it would just be a china bug instead of a world wide pandemic initially . Because weve often seen small outbreaks of different viruses that come and disappear. But this virus wasnt disappearing. It was multiplying exponentially. When i heard about wuhan, i didnt pay that much attention to it until it was clear that it was escalating. Professor peter pyatt has spent his long and celebrated career fighting infectious diseases. He and a colleague discovered ebola in the 1970s. Pyatt was a pioneer in the battle against hiv and aids. For years, i have been saying we have to be prepared for the next big one, an epidemic of a new virus that is transmitted airborne, respiratory transmitted and we are not prepared for it. I saw in wuhan there were already far more cases than we had in total with sars. Then i thought we were in trouble. I think it became a Global Pandemic because its transmitted so easily. Youve got asymptomatic transmission. So it was almost impossible to lock the world down in a way that would have kept it contained in one part of the world. Is that its strength, that it can be passed on by people who dont know theyre sick . Yes. I think thats the reason it got transmitted very efficiently. As the virus spread from one unsuspecting carrier to the next, china swung into action. Its first move was to silence and discredit the doctor who sounded the alarm. When that didnt work, the government swooped in with all its authoritarian might. If you had a fever, you were bound. And if you refused to go quietly, you were rounded up. And if you still refused, you were barricaded inside your home. But china did Something Else that few people noticed. It made a call for help, an appeal to the world, written in genetic code. This is the genetic code that really makes who we are in addition to our environment and our education. You can identify a virus exactly on that kind of code. Just like people, viruses are biological formulas. They are nothing more than strings of genetic code. And on january 10th, just weeks into the outbreak, chinese researchers did something extraordinary. They cracked the viruss code and published that code online. In that sequence, you can also tell which parts of the virus are going to be important for the immune response, how we react to it. If you have that sequence, you can do a lot of things. That really provided everybody in the world with a blueprint that they could use for their different vaccine technologies. In many ways, that was firing the starting gun for all these different vaccine candidates. This is the code china published online. This is sars covi 2. 30 characters for the exact formula of what has been disrupting all of our lives and killed more than a million people. By putting the formula online, china was saying to the world, heres the enemy, now help us defeat it. Well, the best and brightest minds saw what china posted and took up that challenge. Once you have that code, the first thing you can do is to say weve never seen this virus before. On the basis of that code, you can replicate it in the lab. We felt actually we should stand up to the plate and make a vaccine. Th the race for a vaccine had now begun. And the first step was understanding the virus in minute detail. The coronavirus is a tiny sphere, so tiny that 100 million of them can fit on a pinhead. You cant see them with a normal microscope. Viruses cannot survive without a living cell, whether thats animal or human or a plant cell, because they are incomplete in their survival mechanism. Thats why they always will be looking for human beings in the case of human viruses to survive. The coronavirus has a unique way of getting into our cells, through the spikes that act like little claws. Theyre called coronaviruses for a reason. Its spikes. Its these spikes that really are going to penetrate into the cells. They work as a kind of attachment process to gain entry into your cells. If you didnt have those bits on the surface, the virus would be dead. Because it would just move along and wouldnt attach. The surface protein that the spikes recognize are receptors that allow the virus to dock onto cells, gain entry into those cells and shape the infection process. The spikes are the viruss greatest weapon, but they are also its greatest weakness. And these tiny spikes are the target of every major vaccine in development. Vaccines were first invented to treat smallpox 200 years ago by the british dr. Edward jenner. Generations of british children were vaccinated against smallpox. There was not a single case of smallpox reported anywhere on this planet last year. Since they were first introduced, vaccines have barely changed. Vaccines are actually biological products that try to mimic a natural infection. So you inject could be against measles or whatever, its a fake infection. You fool the immune system. The immune system thinks, oh, im infected with measles. Most of the vaccines we get and give our children today are simply dead or weakened versions of the harmful viruses. We trick our bodies into thinking theyve been infected to trigger an immune response. Our bodies do the rest. Vaccines have saved more lives than any other medical discovery in human history. Making vaccines has been a slow and labor intensive process. They had to be grown, often in chicken eggs, one at a time. Now, technology is changing everything. In the race for the Covid Vaccine, scientists are going right to the genetic code. There are more than 100 vaccines in development. They have different approaches, but they all have the same goal, to get our bodies to recognize those little spikes and prevent them from locking on. Our body reacts because its a foreign invasion. One part of the defense are socalled antibodies. These are the ground troops. What they do is they protect the cell by basically coating the whole virus with antibodies so that the virus cant penetrate the cells. These antibodies lock onto the surface of the virus onto those spikes and mean that the virus can no longer get into the cell. So its keeping it outside of the cell and rendering it noninfectious. Finding a vaccine is the key to reopening our society. It is the holy grail of medicine today. And the Biggest Surprise maybe that scientists created a vaccine almost as soon as the virus broke out. Back in january, when china published the genetic code online, professor shaddock fed those 30,000 characters into a computer. The next day, he had a design for the vaccine, a recipe on a computer at least to kill the coronavirus. Thats the speed at which people can move in terms of that design element. Then the next thing is to take that computer designed construct and actually put it together in a laboratory. That takes a couple of weeks to do that, verify it was working in the laboratory and then start looking at whether it actually induced immune response. Thats mind blowing, that you get the formula, in a day the computer spits out a code for the vaccine and just a few weeks later you have a product, a liquid in the real world that is a prototype vaccine. Yeah. So here in this unassuming lab and in several laboratories world wide, scientists had not just an idea for the vaccine, but a real prototype vaccine capable of neutralizing the coronavirus within weeks of the outbreak. What we didnt know is whether it would work. Now the real challenge is will it produce the right immune response in humans, and then will it be protective. Herein lies the problem. Scientists were sure they could kill the virus, but would the cure kill us in the process . At the end of january, dozens of laboratories in asia, europe and the United States were focused on making a vaccine that was both safe and effective for the entire world. With so much at stake and so much to gain, the race for the vaccine got dirty with false claims, propaganda and cyber attacks. Whoever obtains the vaccine first not only obtains the actual vaccine, manufacture it, put it in the vile, distribute it will be the geopolitical leader of the world. Will be th leader of the world. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. With this seal, this restaurant is committing to higher levels of cleanliness. The expertise that helps keep hospitals clean, is helping keep businesses clean too. Look for the ecolab science certified seal. Hi susan honey . Yeah . I respect that. But that cough looks pretty bad. Try this new robitussin honey severe. The real honey you love. Plus, the powerful cough relief you need. Mind if i root through your trash . New robitussin honey severe. Strong relief for your severe symptoms. To help you build a flexible wealth plan. Youll have access to taxsmart investing strategies, and with brokerage accounts online trades are commission free. Personalized advice. Unmatched value. At fidelity, you can have both. Who takes care of yourself. So when it comes to screening for colon cancer, dont wait. Because when caught early, its more treatable. Im cologuard. Im noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92 of colon cancers. Even in early stages. Tell me more. Its for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. False positive and negative results may occur. Ask your prescriber if cologuard is right for you. Im on it. Thats a step in the right direction. Can take you to deep, depressive lows. Or, give you unusually high energy, even when depressed. Overwhelmed by bipolar i . Ask about vraylar. Some medicines only treat the lows or highs. Vraylar effectively treats depression, acute manic and mixed episodes of bipolar i in adults. Fullspectrum relief for all bipolar i symptoms, with just one pill, once a day. Elderly patients with dementiarelated psychosis have an increased risk of death or stroke. Call your doctor about unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. Antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. Report fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, which may mean a lifethreatening reaction, or uncontrollable muscle movements, which may be permanent. Side effects may not appear for several weeks. High cholesterol and weight gain, high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death, may occur. Movement dysfunction, sleepiness, and stomach issues are common side effects. When bipolar i overwhelms, vraylar helps smooth the ups and downs. In the summer of 2020, russia surpassed 1 million coronavirus cases. The kremlin had initially downplayed the pandemic and paid a price for it. But then president Vladimir Putin made a surprise announcement. A Major Medical milestone reached here in the past couple of hours. Russia officially started rolling out a vaccine. If this claim turns out to be true, russia could be declared the putin has made no secret of russias ambition to be the first to win the global vaccine race. Russia christened its vaccine sputnikv named after the first satellite ever launched into space by the soviet union. The Scientific Achievement by soviet russia in beating the United States in the race to launch the first man made moon. Putin launched a pr campaign with graphics showing how russias vaccine would save the planet. Translator i know that our vaccine works effectively, forms a strong immunity. And i repeat it has passed all the necessary checks. But thats not exactly true. Every covid19 vaccine candidate must go through at least three phases of human trials. Phase one, is the drug safe for humans . A small number of brave volunteers try the drug to see if research should continue. Phase two, an expanded number of volunteers take the vaccine, their health monitored regularly. And phase three, does it work on a large scale . Tens of thousands of volunteers are given the vaccine to check for adverse reactions, which could be rare, but important when trying to vaccinate the entire world. Russia only went to phase two and declared victory. I dont find it acceptable that you take shortcuts, injecting lots of people with materials that have not been really well documented for efficacy and safety is not something that would be acceptable here. If we would try to do that, it would be not only unethical, but also it would deter people from having vaccinated. If i didnt believe in the vaccine, if i didnt understand the Science Behind it, i would never have injected myself with it. Karil is the head of a russian statecontrolled investment fund. Hes part of putins inner circle, and hes the pitch man for russias main vaccine. What would you say to people who are skeptical, say i dont want to take some russian vaccine thats been rushed through the system . Of course, people will have a choice. I think, again, we need to make sure that Different Countries have a choice, have all of the data available. You know, we could have been very hidden about our vaccine. We could have just vaccinated our people, not sharing the nature of the vaccine, not sharing information. But this is not the approach we are taking and i think, again, this is something that has to be respected. Putin said he even gave his daughter the vaccine. Putin has two daughters. Hes very secretive about them. One is believed to be a scientist. The other, a competitive rock n roll dancer. He didnt say which one took the vaccine. Russia wasnt alone. China has gone even further. It has begun rolling out its vaccines, giving doses to medical personnel, the military and students. China seems to be doing some phase three trials, the ones that test for side effects in large populations, on its own people. Clearly, the national prestige, projection of scientific prowess, my system of government is better than yours, capitalism versus communism, all of that is at play. I think that the race for a Covid Vaccine is the race for the moon on steroids. Lawrence gosten is a professor of Global Health law at georgetown university. He was also on the board for pandemics at the world health organization. It really is becoming a geopolitical race for bragging and boasting rights. I dont think we should fool anyone to think there is a collaborative mindset across the globe with nation states in this effort. Its a battle space economically, geopolitically and medically. Bill ebbena is the u. S. Governments most senior spy hunter. We continue to see efforts by both russia and china and others to not only beat us to the race with producing the vaccine, but also aggressive attempts to steal what we are producing in the trial faces, in the research and development phase. Is right now the vaccine the primary target that hackers and cyber spies are trying to discover, steal . Theres probably not a whole lot thats more important in the world right now than the race for this vaccine. Hackers almost certainly linked to russian intelligence have been targeting scientists in britain who are carrying out research into a vaccine for coronavirus. We sort of have been seeing targeting from a whole range of actors. The one we called out specifically was russia. Paul chitchester heads up operations at gchq, britains equivalent to the nsa. We really saw a pivot, if you like, from perhaps more traditional targets to take an interest in the u. K. s response to coronavirus when sort of the world was really, i think, realizing just the significance and importance of the situation that it found itself in. Chitchesters unit spent months monitoring russia as its agents picked and probed the Computer Systems of the united kingdoms top laboratories. These are direct operatives working for the government . In this instance, we believe it is Russian Intelligence Services directly. British Officials Say they caught the russians as they tried to steal data from Oxford University and its vaccine manufacturing partner astrazeneca. In terms of dirty tricks, i mean, specifically what weve seen is potentially theft of intellectual property. American and british authorities have accused russia of hacking, of trying to steal scientific information regarding vaccines. What do you say to that . I think false accusations are by some of the people who are afraid of russia having sort of a sputnik moment with the vaccine. But we, again, are not focused on being the first. We are focused on International Cooperation and we believe the world need to put the previous political biases aside. While russia claims to be the epitome of global cooperation, state media have spread disinformation and cartoons smearing rival vaccines, suggesting they could turn you into monkeys. How successful have they been . How much have they managed to steal, how much have they managed to disrupt, destroy, confu confuse . I really cant get into what theyve potentially stolen or what their Operational Success is, but lets just say theyve been super aggressive. Some in our community would say a lot of the work being done in russia and china has already been predicated upon stolen research here in the u. S. How do you know that . We see a lot of the same signatures on our vaccines as we see on their vaccines. Theres only one place they could have gotten it from. In july the u. S. Government formally accused two Chinese Government linked hackers of stealing american Covid Vaccine research. The u. S. Also ordered closed the chinese consulate in houston, texas, labeling it a center of espionage. As chinese officials were leaving, consulate staff could be seen burning what appears to be documents outside the building. I would say covid right now has become the geopolitical economic battle space as we move forward to the next couple years. Rward to the next couple years. Ok everyone, our mission is