After a new type of “bird flu” emerged in China, University of Wisconsin researcher Yoshihiro Kawaoka and his company FluGen began working to make flu vaccines more effective than ever, the university announced recently.

FluGen’s vaccine works by closely mimicking a real flu virus, more so than the vaccines we have today. The company also is working to improve the way the vaccine is delivered. Instead of injecting a dead virus into a person’s arm, the FluGen vaccine is sprayed into the nose, which again is meant to more closely mimic reality.

“This vaccine starts out like a regular flu infection,” Kawaoka said in a statement. “The idea is to create an immune response that is similar to a real flu infection, without making you sick.”

FluGen hopes that the combination of a new vaccine along with a new method of injecting it will improve the ability to fight the H5N1 strain. So far, it has been tested on ferrets and is close to starting human clinical trials.