UNC to recruit volunteers for COVID-19 vaccine trials
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will be one of the new test sites for a vaccine against COVID-19, the school announced Wednesday. Potential volunteers should be on the lookout for a new recruitment website to be set up in the coming weeks.
Blossom Damania, a virologist and vice dean for research at the UNC School of Medicine, announced the clinical trial in a media briefing.
UNC is a research hot spot in the fight against COVID-19. Microsoft Analytics ranks UNC as the most cited American university for research on the new coronavirus. Studies at UNC range all the way from the lab bench to the patient’s bedside.
Clinical trials that are underway or about to start include using plasma from people who recovered from COVID-19 to treat current patients, tests of a new antiviral drug discovered by UNC researchers, two antibody trials, and the trial of Moderna’s new potential COVID-19 vaccine.
How to sign up for a clinical trial
The vaccine trial at UNC will be a Phase 3 clinical trial of a vaccine against COVID-19 developed by Moderna, a private research company.
Moderna’s vaccine is based on taking genetic material, known as mRNA, from the coronavirus. When a person gets the vaccine, their cells will make viral proteins from this mRNA, just as they would if they were infected by the coronavirus. Their immune system should learn to detect these proteins to fight off future exposure to COVID-19.
Damania compared it to another leading vaccine candidate being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. That vaccine is based on taking another kind of virus called an adenovirus, and genetically engineering it to make the spikes found on the coronavirus.
For other trials, people who want to volunteer are encouraged to look at UNC’s clinical research website for more information.
Dirk Dittmer, a professor of microbiology and immunology, said anyone experiencing COVID-like symptoms could probably find a trial to enroll in.
“Every person we put in a trial means we are proceeding faster to getting answers,” he said.
People who have recovered from COVID-19 can also sign up to donate plasma. The antibodies in their plasma can help new patients fight off the coronavirus.
Damania said the hardest thing right now is encouraging people to be patient. Everyone wants a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 as soon as possible. But with such a new disease, there are many potential candidates that need to be tested.
“These trials take time. We’re not going to have a quick answer very soon. We need to be careful when doing these studies,” Damania said.
“We need to enroll lots of different participants across the country so we get the numbers we need to do good statistics, so we make sure it’s really working.”
Using genetic sequencing to study the virus
Dittmer uses advanced genetic sequencing techniques to better understand viruses. His research has traditionally focused on viruses that can cause cancer, but the techniques can also help with the coronavirus.
“We’re trying to predict what the virus will look like in a week, a month or a year from now,” Dittmer said.
By sequencing the genomes of the coronavirus in patients at UNC and comparing those to genomes around North Carolina and the world, researchers can better understand how the virus spreads and mutates, which can affect how doctors treat COVID-19.
For instance, the test that is typically used to diagnose COVID-19 is based on detecting just one small, specific segment of the coronavirus’ genetic material. If this segment changes too much, the test may no longer work.
Dittmer said sequencing shows this part of the viral genome is very slow to mutate, so the tests should be effective for a while.
Similarly, most vaccines are based on getting the immune system to recognize the spike protein that’s on the surface of the coronavirus. If the genes that code for the protein change a lot, even a vaccinated person’s immune system may not detect it. Fortunately these genes are also slow to change.
Dittmer also addressed a concern that the coronavirus might mutate for the worse.
“The virus doesn’t know what’s good or bad,” he said.
Instead, the traits that make it easiest to spread a virus also tend to be the least lethal. As a result, viruses tend to become less severe in the long run.
New techniques mean researchers like Dittmer can sequence the genomes of both the coronavirus and person it’s infected in a week. With this data, they hope to better understand why people can have so many different responses to COVID-19.
Learn more
To learn more about the COVID-19 studies, email UNC_COVID19_Research@unc.edu or call 919-966-6712.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 5:02 PM with the headline "UNC to recruit volunteers for COVID-19 vaccine trials."