An east London clinic is to inject volunteers with a weakened form of coronavirus that scientists hope could work as a vaccine.
US firm Codagenix plans to trial the “Covid lite” vaccine, which would be administered as a nose drop.
Trials could begin at the 24-bed clinic in Whitechapel by the end of the year.
The lab is run by hVivo, a company founded by academics from Queen Mary University of London.
Researchers believe that a weakened or “attenuated” Covid virus will spark an immune response, enabling the body to fight subsequent bigger infections.
The weakened virus replicates at about a thousandth of the rate of the wild strain, while “fooling” the immune system to activate.
