Tuesday, March 17, 2020

NIH Funded Clinical Trial Now Underway -- Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate...


Looking for hopeful news here, on the Saint's day -- and this clearly qualifies.

Moderna -- and its candidate -- are both widely well regarded [Merck maintains a separate, immuno onoclogy-focused venture with the company, which we covered both three, and two years ago, here]. This same "encapsulated container" tech was the winner, in the ebola vaccine efforts. It has been over 99.9 per cent effective. So. . . there is good reason to be highly hopeful.

Here's The Beeb on it:

. . . .Experts say it will still take many months to know if this vaccine, or others also in research, will work.

The first person to get the jab on Monday was a 43-year-old mother-of-two from Seattle.

"This is an amazing opportunity for me to do something," Jennifer Haller told AP.

Scientists around the world are fast-tracking research.

And this first human trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, side-steps a check that would normally be conducted -- making sure the vaccine can trigger an immune response in animals. . . .


Skipping an animal model is a very reasonable risk to take, given the immensely vast stakes.

Onward -- to go vote, now. . . grinning.

नमस्ते

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