UGA To Develop New Flu Vaccine With Multi-Million Dollar NIH Grant

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Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar gerts a flu shot during a news conference in Washington D.C.

The University of Georgia is set to develop a new flu vaccine.

The National Institutes of Health are awarding the university up to $130 million to create a vaccine that would protect against multiple strains of the virus in a single dose.

The director for UGA's Center for Vaccines and Immunology, Ted Ross, will lead the research. He said the new vaccine could one day replace the shot you get every year during flu season. 

"We're trying to break that paradigm where we're going to vaccinate people at any time in the year and give them lifelong immunity to all different strains of influenza," he said.

Ross also said they will also focus their research on developing a vaccine for high-risk populations like children, the elderly or people with weakened immune systems.

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The grant is the largest ever award received by UGA.

Researchers will work up to seven years on the project.