With over 150 vaccine efforts underway as of July 2020 and nearly a half-dozen already in Phase III of clinical trials, the race for a coronavirus vaccine remains vigilant around the globe. 

Follow the latest in vaccine development through the New York Times' live tracker. 

With regard to treatments that might mitigate the effects of COVID-19 for individuals already infected with the virus, drug development efforts are similarly vital and ongoing. Those efforts can be tracked as well through the New York Times, which is updates its website regularly. 


For readers interested in taking a deeper dive into the complexity that surrounds vaccine development, clinical trials and their different stages, and/or the ethical considerations inherent in this type of research, check out Episode 38 of the Useful Science podcast, hosted below.

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A Framework for Readiness

When NASA moves to put science into practice, as in the case of the recent launch with SpaceX on May 30, 2020, the team relies on a technological readiness system to evaluate how prepared they are for the big time. This system is based on Technological Readiness Levels (TRLs). 

​NASA’s benchmarking system consists of nine levels. It’s a way of ranking the “maturity” of any given technology, with higher levels indicating greater readiness for action. TRL4 means a system component has been validated in a laboratory environment, by TRL7 a system prototype has been demonstrated in a space environment, and to reach TRL9 the actual system must be “flight proven” through successful mission operations. (You might argue that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has reached TRL9 with the arrival of astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley at the International Space Station on May 31st and the successful return of the Falcon rocket booster at Florida's Port Canaveral on June 2nd). 
 
 
While different applied projects and different fields of study will inevitably have their own case-by-case considerations, anyone who works near the crossroads of basic and applied research should be familiar with asking this question (and its many subquestions): is our science mission-ready?