Coronavirus Vaccine Update: Imperial College London to Begin Clinical Trials This Week, Project Funded by UK Government
The participants are aged between 18 to 70, and their numbers would be expanded to 6,000 in subsequent phases of the trial if the initial round is successful. The project is funded mostly by the UK government, which has pumped in a contribution of 41 million pounds. An additional 5 million pounds have been raised through other donations.
London, June 16: After the University of Oxford, another premier educational body in the United Kingdom is initiating the trials of a potential vaccine against coronavirus. The Imperial College London announced that the clinical trials to test their vaccine would begin later this week. A total of 300 volunteers would participate in the trials. Coronavirus Vaccine: India's Panacea Biotec Targets Phase 1 of Human Trials in October, Roll-Out of 40 Million Doses in Early 2021.
The participants are aged between 18 to 70, and their numbers would be expanded to 6,000 in subsequent phases of the trial if the initial round is successful. The project is funded mostly by the UK government, which has pumped in a contribution of 41 million pounds. An additional 5 million pounds have been raised through other donations.
The vaccine research is being led by Robin Shattock, a top professor of the Imperial College London. The developers, instead of conducting the trials on volunteers subjected to a mild infection, are using a genetic material of genetic material of Sars-CoV-2 to make then infected with coronavirus.
By conducting trials on actively infected patients of COVID-19, the findings are expected to be more critical. Before the human trials, the tests conducted on animals was found successful as they succeeded in developing antibodies to fight against the virus.
The vaccine aims to produce virus proteins in the muscle which would effectively guard the host body against all future attacks of Sars-CoV-2 infections. The trial on animals has shown "encouraging signs of an effective immune response", the developers were reported as saying.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 16, 2020 04:49 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).