Developing a vaccine for COVID-19 is essential and urgent.
Since the outbreak at the end of 2019, the novel coronavirus SARS CoV-2 has spread rapidly around the world and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. One of the reasons it has been so harmful is that it is a new virus, and people had no immunity against it.
Researchers have been working hard to develop a vaccine that will protect us against the virus and that can be distributed at low cost. Professor Robin Shattock and his team have developed a prototype vaccine is different from traditional vaccines. It’s cheap, highly scalable and has the potential to deliver many effective doses next year, should the current human trials succeed.
But how does this work? How is it different from a normal vaccine? When might we see results? And what’s it been like working on COVID-19?
COVID-19 vaccine researchers Dr Anna Blakney and Dr Paul McKay answered your questions on 5 August 2020.
About our speakers
Dr Anna Blakney
Anna is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow focusing on the development of a self-amplifying RNA vaccine for COVID-19.
Anna is specifically looking at engineering both the RNA – the virus’s genetic code – and the way it’s delivered into our cells to improve our body’s immune response to the vaccine.
Dr Paul McKay
Paul is a Senior Researcher Fellow, working primarily on the development of new vaccine candidates, how we optimise immunisation and the assessment of how effective prototype vaccines are.
For more information about the COVID-19 vaccine trial visit: [ Ссылка ]
