BOSTON (WHDH) - One of the co-owners of the Boston Celtics is pitching in $1 million to help find a vaccine for the coronavirus.
Wyc Grousbeck, the Celtics’ co-owner and CEO, made the donation along with his wife Emilia Fazzalari to a project run by Mass General and Mass Eye and Ear, where Grousbeck chairs the board of directors.
“We’re just trying to pitch in and do what we can. We’re really lucky to be able to do it,” Grousbeck said.
Dr. Luk Vandenberghe at Mass Eye and Ear, who developed the experimental vaccine, describes it as injecting a tiny piece of the virus DNA into the body and giving it a “mug shot” of the virus.
“You’re trying to show a mug shot of the criminal, coronavirus, to the body before the crime happens,” Vandenberghe said. “Then an immune response can develop.”
Vandengerghe says he’s hopeful a vaccine will be developed because there are so many scientists working on it around the world.
“We are not competing against anybody here,” Vandenberghe said. “The only party that we’re competing against is the next wave or the current wave of this virus.”
Vandenberghe says if his vaccine is successful he hopes to have it available for the public sometime in next year.
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