Researchers rush to test coronavirus vaccine in people without knowing how well it works in animals
As they race to test an experimental coronavirus vaccine, researchers aren’t waiting to see how well it prevents infection in animals before trying it in people, breaking from the usual protocol.
“I don’t think proving this in an animal model is on the critical path to getting this to a clinical trial,” said Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech that has produced a Covid-19 vaccine candidate at record speed. He told STAT that scientists at the National Institutes of Health are “working on non-clinical research in parallel.” Meanwhile, the clinical trial started recruiting healthy participants in the first week of March.
