Vaccines

Initial human trial results for a promising COVID-19 vaccine have been been published. The vaccine, developed at Oxford University, has been found to be safe and induce the two key immune responses needed to protect against coronavirus infection.

Researchers at Harvard have developed a new platform for producing vaccines. Red blood cells are loaded with antigens to generate a specific immune response, and in tests in mice the team showed that it was effective in slowing the growth of cancer.

Hot on the heels of biotech company Moderna’s recent announcement of successful phase 1 trials for its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, two more promising candidates are delivering encouraging early data as several vaccines race into phase 2 human testing.

Illustrating the incredibly rapid pace of COVID-19 vaccine development, biotech company Moderna has revealed data from its Phase 1 human trials showing its experimental vaccine is safe, well-tolerated and generates significant antibody levels.

A new article from a quartet of scientific leaders, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, is suggesting it will take not one, but multiple successful vaccines to get through the COVID-19 pandemic and return to normality.

What happens once we develop an effective COVID-19 vaccine? How long will it take to vaccinate 7 billion people? How do we manufacture such a massive volume of vaccine ... and who will get it first?

In the age of a global pandemic, some researchers are suggesting the current vaccine trial process is too slow, and to test potential COVID-19 vaccines we will have to deliberately infect healthy people.

With focus on COVID-19, it’s easy to forget about other deadly viruses. Now, researchers have tested a novel vaccine candidate for Ebola in animals, which doesn’t contain live vectors and appears to be effective against all four species of the virus.

Preliminary human trials of an experimental mRNA vaccine for coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) have begun at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, but results of this phase 1 trial are more than a year away.

Keeping vaccines cool and safe for use is a real problem when it comes to distributing them to remote or developing areas, but a new delivery method from scientists at University of Texas at Austin could give these efforts a huge boost.

Ideally fighting cancer would be as simple as a vaccine, and scientists are taking steps towards that. Now, researchers have developed a way to make vaccine molecules bigger, so they don’t disperse in the blood stream before reaching their target.

Phase 2 human trial results have been published demonstrating the efficacy of an oral form of the influenza vaccine. The trial compared the pill to the most commonly used injectable flu vaccine and found it as safe and effective as its counterpart.