April 17, 2020

hear from the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine team

A team of researchers have been working hard to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, and two weeks ago they opened their trial for recruitment of healthy volunteers.

The vaccine that the Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group clinical teams are developing is a ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine based on an adenovirus vaccine vector and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.  The trial they aim to do will be a phase 1 trial testing for safety in healthy volunteers and looking at whether the vaccine generates an immune response in them.

Journalists dialled in to this virtual briefing to ask questions to these scientists and hear from the team about issues such as:

– Have enough healthy volunteers been recruited?

– When will the first vaccinations be given?

– What steps are being carried out to speed up the vaccine development process?

– Have animal trials been carried out already and what have they shown?

– What happens if some of the volunteers happen to catch the virus during the trial?

– What does emergency-use legislation mean for vaccine development?

– If the vaccine works how long might it take to manufacture in big enough quantities to help?

– Should manufacturing start before all the results are in?

– What if it doesn’t work?

Speakers included:

Prof Sarah Gilbert, lead researcher of the vaccine development programme, and Professor of Vaccinology, University of Oxford

Prof Andrew Pollard, Chief Investigator on the study, and Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity, University of Oxford

Prof Adrian Hill, Director of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford

Dr Catherine Green, Associate Professor, and Head of Clinical BioManufacturing Facility, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford

Dr Teresa Lambe, Associate Professor & Jenner Investigator, The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford