Oxford's Jenner Institute on course to make coronavirus COVID-19 vaccine by September

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As the researchers across the globe are racing against time to develop a coronavirus COVID-19 vaccine, Oxford's Jenner Institute, which has taken a lead in clinical trials of the vaccine, has expressed hope that COVID-19 vaccine could be made available by September, 2020.

It is to be noted that scientists at Jenner Institute have succeeded in getting a promising start on developing the vaccine, having already proved in earlier trials that similar immunisation could prove safe for humans, reported the New York Times. The institute has scheduled tests for the COVID-19 vaccine, involving over 6,000 people by May-end, "hoping to show not only that it is safe, but also that it works." 

After the successful tests, the insititute could get ready to prepare the vaccine doses by September after getting emergency approval from the regulators. In March, several rhesus macaque monkeys were inoculated with small doses of the Oxford vaccine by a team of researchers at Montana's National Institutes of Health.

"The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic -- exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. But more than 28 days later, all six were healthy," Dr Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test, was quoted as saying by NYT.

"The rhesus macaque is pretty much the closest thing we have to humans," noted Dr Munster, adding that result was still being examined by researchers and it is expetced that they would share the results with other scientists too.

The NYT repot, however, stressed that immunity in monkeys does not mean that the vaccine will provide the same degree of protection for humans. But the initial results on monkey sends a signal that Oxford is currently leading in the vaccine race. 

"We are the only people in the country who want the number of new infections to stay up for another few weeks, so we can test our vaccine." said Professor Adrian Hill, the Jenner Institute's director.

According to the NYT report, coronavirus uses a technology that revolves around changing the genetic code of a familiar virus, where the "vaccine uses a weakened version of a virus to trigger an immune response." "But in the technology that the institute is using, a different virus is modified first to neutralise its effects and then to make it mimic a targeted virus -- in this case, the virus that causes Covid-19," Dr Munster said.