Australian government scientists have begun the first stages of testing for a potential vaccine against the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19.
Australia’s national science agency CSIRO said Thursday that testing at a biosecurity facility was expected to take three months.
The testing is being undertaken in cooperation with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global group that aims to help speedily develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases.
CSIRO will initially test two vaccine candidates that were developed by The University of Oxford and American biotechnology company Inovio Pharmaceuticals. The candidates were identified by CEPI in consultation with the World Health Organization.
CSIRO Chief Executive, Dr Larry Marshall said in a statement: “Beginning vaccine candidate testing at CSIRO is a critical milestone in the fight against COVID-19, made possible by collaboration both within Australia and across the globe.”
“We will keep working until this viral enemy is defeated.”
The CSIRO is testing two options selected by a global consortium overseeing most of this research, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
One option, developed by the University of Oxford, is a vector vaccine. It uses a “defective” virus to introduce the proteins of the coronavirus to the immune system and induce a response.
The other vaccine – from Inovio – as “rather different but nonetheless exciting”.
It is designed to encode certain proteins of the coronavirus to the immune system, prompting the body’s cells to generate those proteins before the immune system reacts to them.
“It’s very important to take a multi-pronged approach to this,” said Prof Drew. “It gives us the best chance of success.”
