A Metro Atlanta Biotech Company Is Working On A Coronavirus Vaccine

Farshad Guirakhoo, chief scientific officer at GeoVax, inspects cell culture samples in an incubator. It’s here that scientists grow the starting material they hope to turn into a coronavirus vaccine.

Sam Whitehead / WABE

The lab at GeoVax, a small biotech company in Smyrna, is loud. It’s outfitted with a complex ventilation system to make sure the viruses that scientists there work with don’t escape.

“[You] have to really make sure that you’re not [letting] anything outside,” said Farshad Guirakhoo, chief scientific officer of GeoVax.

Many of the vaccines made at the lab use the same starting material: a weakened form of a virus similar to smallpox, which can carry genetic information from other viruses.