A source familiar with the matter recently told Reuters that the vaccine trials were underway but did not specify what kind of rodent the tests were using.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commissioned the IIBR, which is located in the central Israeli city of Ness Ziona, to help fight against the coronavirus pandemic on February 1, according to Reuters.
In a statement obtained by the outlet, Netanyahu's office said that according to IIBR Director General Shmuel Shapira, "significant progress" had been made on the vaccine prototype, and the institute "is now preparing a model for commencing an animal trial.”
Last week, IIBR Chief Innovation Officer Eran Zahavy revealed that the institute is focused on fighting the coronavirus and that three groups within the organization are working to develop a vaccine.
"We are trying as much as we can to collaborate and have other ideas of other people," he said last week during an online conference hosted by Jerusalem Venture Partners, Reuters reported.
"But the facility of the lab is very crowded and very busy and very dangerous, so it has to be very slow and very cautious,” Zahavy added, also noting that testing the vaccine on animals is a “very big challenge,” as the “disease is not affecting animals.”
"It's not enough only to detect neutralizing antibodies in the animal. You really want to see them getting sick and getting better by this vaccine," he said.
The IIBR is also collecting plasma from people who have recovered from the infection, as another potential COVID-19 treatment is “convalescent plasma,” in which plasma donations from survivors of the disease are infused into a patient currently suffering from it.
“It is possible that convalescent plasma that contains antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) might be effective against the infection,” the US Food and Drug Administration wrote in a release last week announcing the approval of an emergency protocol that allows doctors to perform the procedure for critically ill patients who are at risk of dying.
Israeli scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and the MIGAL – Galilee Research Institute in Kiryat Shmona are also working on potential coronavirus vaccines.
In addition, CanSino Biologics in China, Moderna and INOVIO Pharmaceuticals in the US and CureVac and BioNTech in Germany are all racing to develop vaccines against the virus, which has infected almost 1 million people globally and killed more than 45,000.