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It took decades of work for the brightest minds at the University of Oxford to gain the expertise to develop a vaccine against the new coronavirus. It was a momentary mistake (and a bit of luck) that ended up leading them to complete their work.
Oxford experts were excited when the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, with which they are collaborating to develop the vaccine, announced Monday that it could reach an efficiency of around 90%, according to tests in the final phase of clinical trials.
“This development can only happen if you provide extraordinary support,” Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, which developed the vaccine, told Reuters. “Virtually the entire institute was working on the vaccine.”
While it was the skill and hard work of the researchers that made the development possible, AstraZeneca said it was a small mistake that caused the team to realize how to increase the vaccine’s success rate from 60% to about 90%: starting with a half dose and a full dose one month later.
“We first administered half the dose by chance,” said Mene Pangalos, head of AstraZeneca’s non-cancer research and development department.
It was planned that clinical trial participants in England would receive two full doses, but the researchers were perplexed when they found that side effects such as fatigue, headaches or pain in the arms were milder than expected, Pangalos explained. “We went to check … and found that we had administered the vaccine dose in less than half the dose.”
Pangalos also said the team decided to continue with the group of people who had received half the dose and administer the second full dose within the scheduled dates.
The results showed that the vaccine was 90% effective within this group, while a larger group, which had received two full doses, produced 62% efficacy indicators, leading to an average effectiveness of 70% between the two. vaccination methods. .
“This is how we found the half dose / full dose method,” he told Reuters. “Yes, it was an accident.”
Pangalos also said that further analysis will be needed to explain why a lower starting dose would increase protection. One possible explanation is that lower antigen levels trigger greater protection in the immune system, he concluded. The Oxford University vaccine is made with a viral vector: they use a harmless modified virus (a chimpanzee adenovirus that does not replicate) that delivers a fragment of the genetic material of the new coronavirus to human cells, causing them to produce a protein that mimics that of SARS-CoV-2.
From 1991 to today
Although luck was an important factor, the development of what the Oxford scientists called “a vaccine for the world” was based on 30 years of testing and improved methods.
The adenovirus viral vector platform used by the new vaccine has existed since 1991, according to Adrian Hill.
Hill worked with Sarah Gilbert, another specialist, to perfect the technology, which involved using the chimpanzee constipation virus as a vector through which instructions are delivered to produce the virus protein to be mimicked in tests with diseases such as influenza, syndrome Middle East respiratory disease (MERS) and Ebola during the last decade. The hope was that this would one day be useful against one or more deadly diseases.
In January, they turned their attention to the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Oxford University Vice President Louise Richardson said she was aware of Gilbert’s work and that it looked promising to fight the novel coronavirus, but that the research was being conducted without funds.
The university offered a million pounds (about 1.12 million euros) to fund the research until more funding was obtained, Louise Richardson said, which happened when the British government and AstraZeneca got along in May.
The unprecedented urgency and resources offered to the University of Oxford to demonstrate the effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccine platform have also meant a leap in the fight against other pathogens, the testing of which is in its early stages.
Gilbert said the experience with MERS, which is caused by a different type of coronavirus, was especially helpful. “He showed us that we could make a vaccine with this technology that would induce good immune responses against the coronavirus protein,” Gilbert explained to reporters. “He had also thought about how to act quickly if a new pathogen spreads and we have to make a new vaccine. We had worked a bit to prepare for that. “
2020: “A very long year”
Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and a professor who spent two decades conducting clinical trials, said his experience gave him confidence in the development of Oxford’s new vaccine, initially known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. “I think we knew from the beginning of the year that if we could complete this development, we would have done something that could make a difference,” he told Reuters.
But there was a catch: Limited interest in the Oxford vaccine for other pathogens before the pandemic limited funding to demonstrate the platform’s effectiveness. Until now.
“It takes a huge amount of money or a pandemic to make this funding possible and it is amazing that we have had the opportunity to validate chimpanzee adenovirus technology for this coronavirus,” said Adrian Hill. “If they had told me a year ago that in 2020 they could make a vaccine for a global pandemic, in months, I would have thought it was quite difficult.”
Pollard added that while the speed of development of the coronavirus vaccine was extraordinary, 2020 was “a very long year,” as the team began work on the vaccine in January.
This culminated last week, according to Pollard, in a “huge mountain to climb to gather all the information”, to publish in Monday data shows effectiveness up to 90%.
The last few weeks have been very exhausting. The feeling is one of extreme fatigue and tiredness at this moment, “he said. Andrew Topped tree before meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to present the results. “If the results had not met the regulatory requirements, they would have told us to continue testing. So it was a huge relief. “
