1st human trial of coronavirus vaccine begins in Seattle, USA

March 17: The first human trial of a vaccine to protest against coronavirus has started in the US, with a 43-year old, Jennifer Haller, mother of two from Seattle receiving the first dose. The vaccine is called mRNA-1273 and was developed by US National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and collaborators at biotechnology company Moderna, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The trial began at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle as the first participant received the investigational vaccine. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is funding the trial. The open-label trial will enrol 45 healthy adult volunteers aged 18 to 55 years over approximately six weeks. The first participant received the investigational vaccine on Monday.

The Moderna candidate vaccine carries the genetic information of this spike in a substance called “messenger RNA.” Injecting human tissue with the spike’s messenger RNA makes it grow inside the body, thereby eliciting an immune response without having actually infected a person with the full-blown virus. The Seattle research institute is part of a government network of centers that test all kinds of vaccines, and was chosen for the coronavirus vaccine study before COVID-19 began spreading widely in Washington state.

It’s not the only potential vaccine in the pipeline. Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine against COVID-19. Another candidate, made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals, is expected to begin its own safety study — in the US, China and South Korea — next month.