From hacker news:
Instead of using standard vaccine practices (a dead/damaged/live version of the virus) to train your immune system, we are using these synthetic entities called microspheres. They are made of the same material as internal sutures, and your body takes them up and is able to have a memory response.
I know little to nothing about these "microspheres", but a quick search shows that this approach has been considered for over 15 years. It's not clear if there are any widely used vaccines based on biodegradable microspheres, though there is definitely some research going on. If not, I would think that this particular one succeeding first is somewhat unlikely.
Maybe a subject matter expert can chime in.
The short story is that animal trials of a vaccine have been completed and they're looking for funding to go further.
https://pledge.immunityproject.org/the-free-hiv-aids-vaccine
Discussion on Hacker News here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7108684
A few personal notes:
My first thought on seeing this was "I want to donate, but only if it's actually going to pan out. Otherwise it'll be a waste of my money." But that's exactly the wrong way to think about science. You fund it because it has a worthwhile probability of success. Even if the attempt fails, I can still believe that I've made a "correct" decision.
I've basically outsourced my vetting of the worthiness of the endeavor to Paul Graham, Sam Altman, and the rest of the YCombinator team. They have the time and the resources to examine and consider this more thoroughly than I could possibly do.
Another reason that I donated to this was to encourage the general idea of crowdfunded science.