HEALTH CARE
Dr . Dennis Hartigan-O ’ Connor , an associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology , recently licensed one of the vaccine candidates developed in his lab to startup company Tendel Therapies .
Iyer is studying how helper T cells ( a type of immune cell that activates the body ’ s immune response ) work against SARS-CoV-2 . “ Human studies are harder to control depending on when you get samples and how much you get . Those ambiguities are removed in an animal study ” because of the more controllable scientific environment .
After animal testing , a vaccine enters the clinical development stage , a threephase process defined by the CDC as Phase I : “ small groups of people receive the trial vaccine ”; Phase II : “ vaccine is given to people who have characteristics ( such as age and physical health ) similar to those for whom the new vaccine is intended ”; and Phase III : “ the vaccine is given to thousands of people and tested for efficacy and safety .” ( Even after being approved and licensed by the FDA , many vaccines continue to be monitored by the agency , which is considered Phase
IV .) All told , the development of a vaccine from lab to public consumption can take up to a decade or more , with up to four years being spent in the preclinical stage , then two or more years in human clinical trials , then in continued assessment after a vaccine has been approved , licensed , manufactured and widely distributed .
Types of vaccines
UC Davis ’ researchers have been studying three classes of vaccine to combat SARS-CoV-2 : DNA , mRNA and protein vaccines .
In DNA , or “ gene therapy ,” vaccines , researchers inject genetic material from an antigen ( the molecule present on the outside of a pathogen ) into a patient , causing a small number of the patient ’ s cells to replicate the material , which , in turn , stimulates the patient ’ s immune system to fight off the antigen .
32 comstocksmag . com | December 2020