Novel coronavirus vaccine: 'Clinical trials' in 10 weeks, says HIV/Aids expert

PROGRESS REPORT: A US health official has said that the development of a new vaccine to fight the novel coronavirus (2019-nCov) is "progressing well, with no glitches."

VACCINE UNDER DEVELOPMENT: Work is underway with biotech company Moderna to develop the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The announcement was made during a press briefing at the Department of Health and Human Services on February 7, Friday.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health, has led the fight against every infectious disease crisis in America since 1984. He was one of the first scientists to recognise that the world was on the verge of a new epidemic, HIV/AIDS, and then devoted his career to finding a cure for it.

Dr Anthony S. Fauci (born on December 24, 1940), has made influential contributions to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body's defenses leading to the progression to AIDS. He has also played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and in driving development of biodefense drugs and vaccines following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has developed therapies for formerly fatal diseases such as polyarteritis nodosa, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, and lymphomatoid granulomatosis.

Moderna, Inc. is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company focused on drug discovery and drug development based on messenger RNA (mRNA). The company creates synthetic mRNA that can be injected into patients to help them create their own therapies.

Messenger RNA, or mRNA, plays a fundamental role in human biology, transferring the instructions stored in DNA to make the proteins required in every living cell. Our approach is to use mRNA medicines to instruct a patient’s own cells to produce proteins that could prevent, treat, or cure disease.

RESEARCH WORK: Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said one of the first steps that the vaccine development had to go through proved "successful" after the researchers successfully inserted the virus gene, published by their Chinese counterparts in a database, into the Moderna's messenger RNA platform, allowing it to express proteins.

RESEARCH FACILITY: High school students visiting Moderna Therapeutics' facility under the company's mentorship and STEM program. The biotech company, a developer of messenger RNA (mRNA) treatments, is developing the novel coronavirus vaccine, according to Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

INDUCING IMMUNOGENICITY: One key step in developing the coronavirus vaccine is to insert a virus gene using which allows it to express proteins. Then, using Moderna's messenger RNA platform, those proteins will be put into a mouse model to induce "immunogenicity", Dr Fauci explained.

IMMUNOGENICITY: Immunogenicity is an important part of a person's immune response to infectious viruses and bacteria. It is the ability of a particular substance, such as an antigen or epitope, to provoke an immune response in the body of a human and other animal.

INDUCING IMMUNE RESPONSES: Immunogenicity is the ability to induce a humoral and/or cell-mediated immune responses.

INITIAL TRIALS: If successful, initial clinical trials will start within the next 10 weeks (or 2-1/2 months) to test the vaccine's safety in a small group of humans, according to Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health.

WUHAN VIRUS — dubbed by the World Health Organisation as "2019-nCoV" — is a deadly virus that traces its origin in the local seafood market of Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province in central China — has killed 813 people, surpassing the death toll from the SARS epidemic of 2002-3.

CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK: Medical staff members wearing protective clothing to help stop the spread of a deadly virus which began in the city, work at the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital in Wuhan on January 25, 2020. The Chinese army deployed medical specialists on January 25 to the epicentre of a spiralling viral outbreak that has killed 41 people and spread around the world, as millions spent their normally festive Lunar New Year holiday under lockdown.

GLOBAL EMERGENCY: This photo taken on January 30, 2020 shows a doctor wearing a facemask looking at a lung CT image from a patient at a hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province, during the virus outbreak in the city. The World Health Organization declared a global emergency over the new coronavirus.