It’s been tipped as the ‘front runner’ in the fight against coronavirus, and now there’s good news for the Oxford University Covid-19 vaccine.
The vaccine has undergone rigorous testing, and now a team at Bristol University has validated that the vaccine accurately follows the genetic instructions programmed into it.
This provides even greater clarity and detail about how the vaccine successfully provokes a strong immune response.
Dr David Matthews, who led the research, said: “This is an important study as we are able to confirm that the genetic instructions underpinning this vaccine, which is being developed as fast as safely possible, are correctly followed when they get into a human cell.
“Until now, the technology hasn’t been able to provide answers with such clarity, but we now know the vaccine is doing everything we expected and that is only good news in our fight against the illness.”
In the study, the researchers focused on how often and accurately the vaccine copies and uses the genetic instructions provided by the Oxford University team.
These instructions detail how to make the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
Once the spike protein is made, the immune system reacts to it, pre-training the immune system to identify a real Covid-19 infection.
This means that when the person vaccinated is confronted with SARS-CoV-2, their immune system is pre-trained and ready to attack it.
Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and lead on the Oxford vaccine trial, said: “This is a wonderful example of cross-disciplinary collaboration, using new technology to examine exactly what the vaccine does when it gets inside a human cell.
“The study confirms that large amounts of the coronavirus spike protein are produced with great accuracy, and this goes a long way to explaining the success of the vaccine in inducing a strong immune response.”
