Nasal vaccines may be the next generation of protection against COVID

NEW YORK – Peter Palese pulls open the door of a 16th floor lab room at Mount Sinai's Upper East Side hospital. 

Inside the unusually warm room, lie stacked sheets of chicken eggs, delivered fresh every Tuesday.

Palese holds a flashlight against one to show how these eggs differ from those typically eaten for breakfast. Red veins appear. 

In the lab across the hall, researchers carefully infect each egg with a bird virus that is harmless to people. As this Newcastle disease virus replicates, it also makes copies of its payload: the spike protein from the coronavirus that has upended the world for more than two years.