Researchers from the Oxford Vaccine Group and Oxford’s Jenner Institute have identified a vaccine candidate for COVID-19.
In the race to find a vaccine for the virus, a team in Oxford including Professor Sarah Gilbert, Professor Teresa Lambe, Professor Andrew Pollard, Professor Adrian Hill and Doctor Sandy Douglas started the process of developing a vaccine back in January of this year.
Currently, they have identified a candidate and progressing to the first clinical testing phase.
The Oxford Vaccine Group state that they ‘are not currently recruiting participants for COVID-19 vaccine trials.’
This is due to the team focusing on the development of the vaccine.
However, the group will provide updates and a link to sign up once the trail is open.
This will be made available on the Oxford Vaccine Group website.
The group have identified that the club-shaped spikes on the outer coating of Coronavirus prove to be a credible target for a vaccine.
The group state that “after vaccination, the surface spike protein of the Coronavirus is produced.”
“This primes the immune system to attack the virus if it later infects the body”.
Professor Gilbert and the team have previously developed a vaccine for MERS which ‘has shown promise’ in early clinical trials.
The group also state:
“At the same time as preparing for and conducting the first clinical trial, production of the vaccine is being scaled up ready for larger trials, and potentially, future deployment”.
