To be more informed, we talked to the two main researchers in the trials: Dr. Susan Little, medical professor, and Dr. Stephen A. Spector, a leading professor of pediatrics, either at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Q: Is it realistic to expect one or more vaccines to be approved before the end of the year?
Spector: It’s possible, but I think it’s more vital to make sure that any authorized vaccine is effective and we have to keep in the brain that new vaccines take a decade or longer to develop regularly. Scientists have been using a COVID -19 for less than a year, and here we are with several Phase III trials. So while we would all like a vaccine today, it is imperative to be sure that the scientists who conduct the studies and the public who get the vaccine are confident in the process.
Little: the same old vaccine progression procedure is long and difficult, intentionally. Many vaccines never succeed in the final line. A technique is less promising than expected and is being abandoned. A drug candidate might not produce the desired effect in trials or possibly be related to unacceptable side effects. Many things can particularly delay or prevent a candidate vaccine.
Spector: With COVID-19, the progression schedule has accelerated incredibly, in a giant component because many other people and resources are focused on the task, adding UC San Diego.
Q: How has UC San Diego taken leadership in treating COVID-19 patients?
Little: Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have noticed an incredible and united reaction from the university: professors, staff, students, all of us, we saw it in the fitness care system, which temporarily mobilized resources to treat an unknown disease in the past. , and in the faculty of studies, which temporarily made clinical trials available, offering the first prospective remedies for COVID-19 to our hospitalized patients. People would possibly say that UC San Diego Health has dealt with documented cases 13 and 14 of COVID-19 in the country and has been doing so effectively ever since.
As a university medical center, our role goes beyond the good management of patients who need it, we are also guilty of advancing the way COVID-19 causes the disease and conducting randomized clinical trials of remedies and vaccines to detect the most productive cure and prevention strategies.
Spector: UC San Diego is a giant study university, one of the country’s highest productions, and we turn it out, we have resources like the Altman Clinical and Translational Institute that we don’t have maximums puts on, we have access to a world- Across campus, scientists and departments have turned to other facets of the pandemic. A year ago they are doing things, from fundamental studies on the functioning and spread of coronavirus to new fan designs, expansive testing methods, clinical trials comparing new therapies, reused drugs and, of course, future vaccines.
Q: How is UC San Diego doing in COVID-19 vaccine trials and how do they work?
Spector: I’m the site’s lead researcher for Moderna’s essay, which here in July. This is a randomized trial, without the knowledge of observers and controlled with placebo, the popular gold of the trials. The plan is to recruit up to 30,000 participants in several across the country. Lately we have registered about three hundred participants in UC San Diego. The purpose is 500. La will get the two-injection vaccine; part will receive a placebo. The vaccine uses a new mNR technology. When the lipid nanoparticle containing mRN is injected into the muscle, mRN is translated into a complex full-length protein (the protein intended to provide coverage as opposed to SAR-CoV-2) and stimulates the human immune formula to produce antibodies and cellular immunity as opposed to the virus.
Little: I’m the lead researcher in the AstraZeneca and Janssen trials at UC San Diego, which began in September and October respectively. Both trials will prioritize participation in vaccine studies for others in San Diego communities with the highest RATES of COVID-19.
For Janssen’s trial, we partnered with National City to identify a semi-permanent vaccination clinic in El Toyon Park. People from all over San Diego County who are 18 years of age or older are eligible for any of the vaccine studies, registration is done at specific clinical sites in southern and east San Diego County. The trial will recruit up to 60,000 participants in several countries, adding 2,000 at UC San Diego. It is based on a well-proven vaccine platform that has been used for many other infectious diseases, adding Ebola and Zika. A deactivated human adenovirus, which cannot be reflected in humans (and therefore will not cause bleeding), is changed to bring the protein from the coronavirus’s characteristic peaks. When the bloodless virus enters host cells, the complex protein activates an immune system reaction and the resulting antibodies.
(NOTE: Johnson
The AstraZeneca exam will use an exclusive cell vaccination clinic strategy that will take the vaccination clinic to La Mesa, Chula Vista and Imperial Beach. This test will recruit up to 30,000 participants nationwide, approximately 1,000 in the San Diego arm of the trial a weakened monkey adenovirus, which can cause ex-bleeding in monkeys, but reflect in humans. Adenovirus is modified to release human cell-specific SARS-CoV-2 proteins, triggering an immune reaction and the production of neutralizing antibodies.
(NOTE: The AstraZeneca test was discontinued in mid-September when a test player in the UK developed severe neurological symptoms. The player recovered and the test resumed in the UK and other countries, but remains on hold in the UNITED States).
Q: How are vaccines designed to produce antibodies?
Spector: The general concept is to safely disclose the human immune formula to elements of the new coronavirus that induce an immune reaction to exposure to herbs, but without the threat of a real infection, in this case, it means generating neutralizing antibodies, they are proteins produced. Through immune cells that recognize and target expressed pathogens, bind to them and interfere with the ability of the pathogen to penetrate cells, rendering them non-infectious. The presence of neutralizing antibodies is essential to obtain immunity to diseases.
What is not yet known is how long these neutralizing antibodies opposed to SARS-CoV-2 persist and remain effective, which will have a significant effect on how an approved COVID-19 vaccine might want to be given.
Q. Why expand a COVID-19 vaccine?
Little: As we have seen, anyone can be inflamed with SARS-CoV-2. A significant proportion of other people inflamed with SARS-CoV-2 remain asymptomatic; the overall probability of asymptomatic infection is lately estimated to be between 15 and 20 percent. this rate decreases with age.
Community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 through asymptomatic and presymptomatic Americans (approximately two days of viral excretion that occurs before symptomatic symptoms appear) remains one of the main situations that demand public aptitude for existing mitigation measures. such as mask and social estinement. People who do not understand themselves as sick can spread well to others if right hand hygiene, facial masking and social estating are not practiced.
A number of points increase the threat of serious illness. The people most vulnerable to infection are men and the elderly, and the threat of serious illness extends to others over the age of 65. In addition, certain underlying situations exacerbate the threat: obesity, cancer, chronic kidney or lung disease, severe center disease, or diabetes, for example.
Q: Are there express equipment or populations of others that you would inspire to enroll in one of the tests?
Spector: Because other people of color have the greatest threat of being inflamed with SARS-CoV-2, and are at the greatest threat of having a serious disease in COVID-19, we are interested in enrolling other people in those communities in the vaccine. Trials.
Few: Many color populations have higher hospitalization rates with COVID-19 and some have higher death rates. It is that the 3 trials recruit populations of sufficient racial and ethnic diversity to address the problems of vaccine efficacy in teams that appear to have more serious clinical problems. COVID-19 results We are working hard to raise awareness and inspire participation in communities of color, either to better assess the effectiveness of vaccines and, hopefully, to reduce devastating rates of hospitalization and death in those communities. in various ways, through multilingual communications, automobiles that provide immunization opportunities in needs and network clinics.
Q. What else should the campus network know?
Spector: We’re going through a difficult time. There are times when I think we all feel a kind of helplessness, which the scenario helps to keep going from bad to worse, in fact we are moving forward. The virus is relentless and apolitical, looks for vulnerabilities and exploits those vulnerabilities, but we are fighting. Much has been learned about how productive it is to treat patients with COVID-19. Hopefully, we’ll soon have an effective vaccine that can help get back to normal. San Diego residents have a rare opportunity to be part of the fight through volunteering for a trial.