In episode 3 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford will be speaking to Professor Andrew Pollard, Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford. Professor Pollard is head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, who, along with the Jenner Institute, are running the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine trial.
 
They will be be discussing:

•The Oxford Vaccine Centre's COVID-19 vaccine trial being run by the Oxford Vaccine Group and The Jenner Institute which Professor Pollard is co-leading
•How the Oxford Vaccine Group's previous work on the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus vaccine enabled them to commence work on a SARS-2 vaccine very quickly, using the same platform
•How the prior research into MERS and SARS vaccines gave huge insight into biology of coronaviruses and likely protective antigens
•Vaccine safety concerns in vaccine development like antibody enhanced disease (AED) and the important role of vaccine safety in trial design and evaluation
•An update on progress of The Oxford Vaccine Centre's current trials with the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine
•The use of a control arm in randomised trials and how the COVID-19 Oxford Vaccine Trial are using a meningococcal vaccine in their control arm
•How declining disease in the community resulting in lower transmission and flattening of the curve affects both vaccine trial design and location of study sites
•The upscaling of vaccine manufacturing required in a pandemic and how critical it is that there is global, equitable access to vaccine(s) when they are available

Link:

https://covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk