Australian agency starts “milestone” testing of potential COVID-19 vaccines
The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has begun animal testing of two potential COVID-19 vaccines, which will determine if they would be safe to use on humans. The vaccines, one by UK’s University of Oxford and one by US company Inovio Pharmaceutical, have been cleared for animal testing by the World Health Organization.
While the first human trial took place in the US last month, CSIRO said this round of testing will be “the first comprehensive pre-clinical trials of the vaccines to use an animal model.” The CSIRO team has just administered vaccine samples into ferrets –the small, furry mammals have been shown to contract the coronavirus in the same way humans do.
Of the two vaccines being tested by CSIRO, the first vaccine, developed by Oxford University, is a vector vaccine. It uses a “defective” virus to introduce the proteins of the coronavirus to the immune system to try to induce a response.
“There is no possibility of becoming ill through this particular vaccine because the proteins are unable to replicate,” assures Professor Trevor Drew, Director of the Australian Animal Health Laboratory where the testing is being carried out.
Meanwhile, the vaccine from Inovio is designed to encode certain proteins of the coronavirus to the immune system, prompting the body’s cells to generate those proteins before the immune system reacts to them. Professor Drew describes this vaccine as “rather different but nonetheless exciting.”
The scientists reveal that the first results from the animal tests could come in by June and, if successful, could be introduced into the general market in record time. But experts warn that an effective vaccine would still need a minimum 18-month timeline to meet regulatory tests and standards.
According to Dr. Rob Grenfell from the CSIRO, “no single organisation can actually produce a vaccine” – but he is optimistic now, given the unprecedented level of global co-operation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Category: Features, Pharmaceuticals
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