Alexander Dmitriev, a top boffin at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told RIA Novosti on Friday that preclinical studies of the yogurt-based vaccine are now underway and could be completed within a year.

Answering the question everyone was wondering, Alexander Suvorov, another scientist who has worked on the idea of the needle-free vaccination, told reporters that it would taste almost exactly like a popular local dairy drink, known as ryazhenka. The fermented baked milk-based beverage is beloved in Russia and Ukraine, and tastes not dissimilar to kefir or soured milk.

In the process, a fragment of the synthesized coronavirus genome is used and this is embedded in the genome of the bacterium, and as a result of this genetic modification, a protein is generated that in turn guarantees the production of an immune response by the body.

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