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Burble,

Thanks for the comprehensive replies. I was trying to understand why you feel the US would be a better place to run a challenge trial. ie. Your comment 'You'd want to try this in somewhere like the US at the moment'. Are you saying that the regulatory environment is easier in the US?

Burble,

Re. your 12.45, isn't the whole point that challenge trials can be carried out anywhere? ie. They don't require high levels or even any COVID-19 in the community and so there would be no advantages in carrying out a trial in the US rather than the UK. Apologies if I have misunderstood your post.

Sorry Inanaco, what is your point? I'm not sure what you're responding to.

Are you saying that a phase I from Scancell for Covidity could provide evidence of efficacy?

Inanaco,

Of course these results won't tell us anything about efficacy - no COVID-19 phase I trial will do that, not even Scancell's when/if it happens. All we're getting from these early trial results from BioNTech, Oxford, CanSino is confirmation that the vaccines are safe and the response from patients warrants taking the product forward into further clinical trials.

TF - I haven't read the Telegraph article as I don't subscribe but there are 23 vaccines in clinical trials, not 10. I assume the whole article follows on from Peston's 'leak' yesterday and I have seen other articles too, predicting encouraging trial results. I don't know whether these 'leaks' are coming from Gov., Oxford, The Lancet, or some other source but it's really poor and very disappointing. No better than Moderna's hype IMO. Let's hope when the results do finally come that they are able to live up to the high expectations these articles are creating.

New research has been published in Nature today looking at T cell responses to epitopes from COVID-19 N protein. Worth remembering that most vaccines are targeting the S (spike) protein but Scancell's Covidity targets both the S and N (nucleocapsid) proteins.

The study looked at 36 people who had recovered from COVID-19 and found that all of them had the presence of CD4 and CD8 T cells recognising multiple epitopes from the N protein. They then looked at 23 patients who had recovered from SARS (2003) coronavirus and found that they still have long lasting-memory T cells recognising the SARS N protein 17 years later, importantly, these T cells cross-react to the current COVID-19 N protein.

They also found COVID-19 specific T cells in 37 people who had never been infected with either SARS or COVID-19, yet they had these T cells which recognised epitopes from the N protein! The theory is that infection with previous, possibly unknown coronaviruses has generated memory T cells.

The findings of the study:-

'Thus, infection with betacoronaviruses induces multispecific and long-lasting T cell immunity to the structural protein NP'

In other words, memory T cells against the N protein in one coronavirus might afford some protection against future viruses or perhaps mutations of existing ones. Sounds familiar. (IMO, DYOR etc.)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z

WTP (and anyone else who believes his Oxford funding conspiracy theory)

Way back in February, just a few days after the Chinese first told the World that COVID-19 could be spread by human to human transmission, the UKRI launched a £20m Rapid Response Fund to fund projects of up to 18 months duration. The evaluation process and assessment criteria are easy to find and included review by an expert panel. Oxford's application was one of 6 projects funded in round 1. The initial funding was just £2.2m for preclinical development and this was increased by £20m to fund phase I trials. It's highly likely that the funding agreement was based on the project hitting certain milestones before the next tranche would be released to fund the next phase of trials. So your comment that the project hadn't been the subject of any appraisal is not true.

At a time when the Government handling of this crisis has (quite rightly) been the subject of the most intense, unprecedented scrutiny and the media has been looking for any story, any controversy, there has been no coverage of your conspiracy theory from any other source - just the one article from the one author. It may just be possible that all was above board and that the UKRI made their awards based on need and merit.

The fact that Oxford have received funding doesn't preclude anybody else from an award and there really is no link whatsoever with Scancell. Nobody knows whether the Oxford vaccine will succeed or fail so fortunately, as LL has mentioned, the Vaccines Taskforce intend to fund a portfolio of vaccines.

irrelevant

WTP -

Just a very quick response - it is simply not true to say that there's been no appraisal of Oxford's application for funding. The earlier rounds certainly went through the rigorous UKRI assessment and review by expert panel. I haven't time to find the links but they're there if you want to find them.

That's the great thing about conspiracy theories - they know no bounds because by definition they're only theories and fact is almost irrlelevant. :)

Ray,

Thanks for your reply. It wasn't there when I posted my last post. I completely agree that Peston has obviously been tipped off about the paper in The Lancet and it's pretty poor. Publication of clinical trial results shouldn't be the subject of a 'scoop' or any hype and it undermines credibility of all involved IMO. Having said that, as all journalists do, Peston has spent his entire career networking and building contacts and it's a big leap to assume that the reason he was given the tip-off is that he attended Oxford decades ago.

Chelsea, I don't have a new email address. Still have the old one, just very rarely remember to check it.

WTP - nope haven't filtered you. Genuinely like to listen to all views with an open mind. I hear the words 'conspiracy theory' but wondering how Robert Peston and that article in particular fits into it. Are we saying that anything from Oxford and anything connected with the vax is somehow suspect now? I'm surprised because the article was about the results of the clinical trial, not funding and I'm certain that the majority of the population would read any article about encouraging results from ANY vaccine and see it as positive and offering some hope.

Inanaco - yes I saw your post yesterday about me 'explaining myself' Since you've kindly gone to the trouble of looking back and quoting my post to Chelsea, you can see I didn't say I would explain myself, I said I would answer his post to me. I still will if necessary.

Ray,

Of course they should, but it was a genuine question. You've read something vaguely positive about the Oxford vaccine and immediately gone to the trouble of googling to see which university the author attended and immediately posting here. I'm baffled - what exactly are you concerned about? Are you saying that Peston's article is biased? That it's incorrect? What exactly?

Ray,

lol your post has 3 recs. What exactly are you trying to suggest?

nom,

Well I guess in the long run the question will be whether we trust the FDA and EMA (if they get that far).

Thanks for that. Very early days of course but good news. Looks like another one that's going to need a two shot dosing regime.

Ruck,

In answer to your 12.57, if, for some reason a vaccine only worked in a subset of the population then I'd have thought they'd just vaccinate that subset. ie. If the vaccination works then there's no need to combine with anything else. I really don't know but assuming it's known why only some people will respond and you can predict who they are then it's unlikely IMO.

BioNTech/Pfizer granted FDA Fast Track designation for their Covid-19 vax.

https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/pfizer-and-biontech-granted-fda-fast-track-designation-two

Chelsea,

I'm out and about at the moment, taking one of the kids to an appointment. Just wanted to quickly say that my post wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. We are where we are and I'm certain that we actually all want the same outcome. Will reply fully when I get back.

Chelsea,

............and yet, I know of very well informed, well researched people who would greatly add to the discussion on this board who believe that any different opinions are unwelcome and are simply dismissed as negative and unreasonable . They certainly don't feel the board is inclusive, it cuts both ways and the board is all the poorer for it.

Well hope they're right whoever they are.