The University of Queensland’s potential COVID-19 vaccine is entering an important new phase of testing with the live coronavirus to determine how effectively it induces protection against coronavirus infection.
The UQ team will partner with the Dutch company, Viroclinics Xplore, on the crucial pre-clinical studies.
Vaccine program co-leader, Dr Keith Chappell, said the ability to build on an existing partnership with a world-class facility like Viroclinics Xplore was a huge advantage for the UQ project.
“These protection studies must be done in specialist biosecurity facilities as they use the live virus, and our long-standing partnership with Viroclinics Xplore gives us the confidence that this can be achieved as quickly as possible,” Dr Chappell said.
“This work will establish a critical package of data that will take us through to human clinical trials in Q3 2020.”
