NEWS
campusreview.com.au
A patient is injected as part of the first
human trials in the UK for a potential
coronavirus vaccine, undertaken by Oxford
University. Photo: Oxford University Pool
Vaccine trials begin
Oxford and UQ take great strides
in coronavirus vaccine race.
By Wade Zaglas
T
he University of Oxford has ticked
a crucial box in the race to develop
and distribute a COVID-19 vaccine.
The institution announced recently that
it had struck a deal with biopharmaceutical
company AstraZeneca – a strategic partner
of the University of Cambridge – for the
global development and distribution of
the COVID-19 vaccine it recently put to
human trials.
The Oxford team said it would allow for
rapid vaccination around the world if the
vaccine candidate proved to be effective.
The vaccine, known as ChAdOx1
nCoV-19, has already entered phase I
clinical trials. Up to 1102 healthy volunteers
aged 18–55 in the Thames Valley Region
will either receive the vaccine candidate or
meningococcal vaccine MenACWY that will
be used as a control.
The Oxford researchers recently landed
£20 million ($38 million) in government
funding for the research.
Data from the trials could be available in
May. The team said late-stage trials should
take place by the middle of the year.
To date, vaccines made from the
ChAdOx1 virus have been given to more
than 320 people and have been shown to
be safe and well tolerated, but can cause
temporary side effects like temperature,
flu-like symptoms and headache.
Here’s the University of Oxford’s
explanation of the vaccine candidate:
“The vaccine candidate uses a viral
vector based on a weakened version of
the common cold (adenovirus) containing
the genetic material of SARS-CoV-2 spike
protein. After vaccination, the surface
spike protein is produced, which primes
the immune system to attack COVID-19 if
it later infects the body. The recombinant
adenovirus vector (ChAdOx1) was chosen
to generate a strong immune response
from a single dose and it is not replicating,
so cannot cause an ongoing infection in
the vaccinated individual.”
Professor Sir John Bell, regius professor
of medicine at Oxford University, said
the partnership will be a major force in
the struggle against pandemics for years
to come.
“We believe that together we will be in a
strong position to start immunising against
coronavirus once we have an effective
approved vaccine.”
Australian vaccine breakthrough
As Oxford passes an important milestone in
the COVID-19 vaccine sprint, so too does
the University of Queensland.
Researchers enlisted the help of the
Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and
Immunity to show their vaccine’s ability
to raise high levels of antibodies that can
neutralise the virus in early pre-clinical
testing.
UQ project co-leader Professor Paul
Young said the results were “a great relief”
and an excellent indication that the vaccine
worked as expected.
“We were particularly pleased that the
strength of the antibody response was even
better than those observed in samples from
COVID-19 recovered patients,” Young said.
UQ project co-leader Dr Keith Chappell
said the team decided early on that a robust
package of pre-clinical and safety data
was critical before entering a clinical trial,
and they hoped to have those results in
early June.
To help create that package, UQ
partnered with Dutch company Viroclinics
Xplore. Chappell said the protection studies
must be done in specialist biosecurity
facilities, provided by the partner company,
as they use the live virus.
The group also recently announced
a collaboration with Cytiva to enable
key manufacturing activities and added
discussions are ongoing with other
commercial entities.
UQ expects to start human clinical trials
in Q3 2020. ■
7