Singapore can launch human trials for the COVID-19 vaccine this week

Professor OOI ENG EONG. Straits Times / Asia News Network

Singapore — Covid-19 vaccine human trials could begin in Singapore again this week.

The study will involve 108 healthy volunteers of all ages from Singapore, who will be injected with a vaccine developed by Duke-NUS Medical School and US pharmaceutical company Arcturus Therapeutics.

The vaccine, called Lunar-Cov19, is one of 25 vaccine candidates in the world and has been tested in humans or approved. The other 141 are still in the preclinical stage.

Professor Ooi Eng Eong, deputy director of the new infectious disease program at Duke NUS Medical School, said the purpose of the trial was to determine vaccine safety and whether it could induce a desirable immune response in the body. To check is the virus that causes Sars-CoV-2, Covid-19.

Blood samples are taken from volunteers several times after vaccination for analysis.

Because of the presence of immune system elements such as antibodies and T cells in the blood, this data shows that the vaccine was successful in stimulating the body and creating the “soldiers” that are important in preventing infection. Helps scientists decide whether or not.

The recently published results from human trials against other vaccine candidates already show promising signs on these fronts.

The findings, published publicly last Monday, came from an early stage of clinical trials for a vaccine being developed by Oxford University and the multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. CanSino Biologics and Chinese Military Research Division. German biotechnology company BioNTech and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

Professor Oi said he was optimistic that the outcome of the Singapore trial would have similarly promising results.

He said preliminary studies on animal models have already shown that the Lunar-Cov19 vaccine is safe and free of side effects.

The data allow the vaccine to be approved for clinical trials ahead of the expected September timeline, making it the first human clinical trial in Singapore.

“When we got the news that we were vaccinated, many people were excited to say they wanted to be vaccinated,” said Professor Oi. “And I think it’s encouraging because the earlier volunteers come out, the faster we can complete the trial.”

Clinical trials will be conducted at the Sing Health Investigational Medicine Unit at Singapore General Hospital.

Professor Oi said volunteers of all ages are needed.

Interested parties should contact the SingHealth Investigational Medicine Unit by email. [email protected] Or call 6323-7544 / 8318-0685.

He said the results of this trial, known in the medical community as Phase I / II trials, will be available around October or November if the plan goes well.

Professor Oi said the next step in the clinical development process involves inoculating a much larger pool of thousands of volunteers in Singapore and abroad.

This could begin before the end of the year, he added, “in Phase III, I want to know if the vaccine is preventing it from actually getting Covid-19.”

Vaccines work by “demonstrating” the immune system, an important part of the virus, and by “training” in recognizing and remembering pathogens without exposing the patient to the risk of disease.

Traditional vaccines do this by injecting a killed or weakened form of the virus into the human body, so that the immune system recognizes the invader and summons its “soldiers,” or antibodies and T cells. Exterminate

However, the Lunar-Cov19 vaccine contains a new type of technology.

Like the front-runner vaccine candidate developed by the American company Moderna, the vaccine contains only a fragment of the genetic material of the virus, not the entire virus.

When these viral gene fragments enter human cells after injection, genomic fragments direct the cells to begin producing the characteristic spike proteins of coronavirus.

It trains to recognize an important part of the virus, the spike protein, without exposing the whole body to the whole virus.

However, the Moderna vaccine is a non-replicating vaccine, which means the spike proteins do not allow it to replicate in the body, but Lunar-Cov19 does.

This replication simulates a real virus infection, Oi said.

Non-replicating vaccines, on the other hand, simply provide the body with a portrait of the intruder.

“By imitating the reproduction, the body can see a “video” of the aggression, not just a snapshot.

“This gives us the best way for an infection to affect the immune system and target the virus,” he said.

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