DURHAM, N.C. (WNCN) — On Monday, Duke Health announced a federal contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

It provides $11.2 million to support the program to create a pan-coronavirus vaccine; however, the schools said additional provisions in the contract could increase the total funding up to $21.5 million.

Duke has been working on a pan-coronavirus vaccine since 2020. This type of vaccine would protect against the original virus that causes COVID as well as Beta and Delta variants.

Currently, there are no approved vaccines capable of providing immunity to a wide array of variants—but Duke is hoping to change that.

“Prior to this contract, we did not have funding to actually move this vaccine from a laboratory setting actually into the clinic where you can evaluate how well it works. This funding is what allows us to manufacture the vaccine and then lastly allows us to test it in a small clinical trial,” Dr. Kevin Saunders said, the Director of Research Duke Human Vaccine Institute.

Duke said under the new contract, the vaccine will be manufactured and tested on humans to determine its safety and whether it generates antibodies.