Professor Adrian Hill: The man leading a team in search of COVID-19 vaccine
While the world is on a fast race to develop a vaccine for the deadly COVID-19 killing young and old across the globe, a team of researchers at the Jenner Institute, Oxford University, United Kingdom, is fast ahead in the race and has developed a vaccine that is now on the third phase of human trial in three countries. There is still good news in the midst of the pandemic.
Leading the team is Professor Adrian Hill, a Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and one of the 40 people listed on the Neusroom 100 project helping the world conquer the deadly virus. Though his team may be ahead of over 100 vaccines being developed and the more than 13 in clinical trials stage, Hill believes his team is not racing against other vaccine developers but against time and the pandemic.
A vaccinologist, Hill is also the director of the Jenner Institute which focuses on designing and developing vaccines for infectious diseases prevalent in developing countries, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
According to the New York Times, the work of the institute against COVID-19 uses a technology that centers on altering the genetic code of a familiar virus. A classic vaccine uses a weakened version of a virus to trigger an immune response but in the technology that the Jenner Institute is using, a different virus is modified first to neutralize its effects and then to make it mimic the one scientists seek to stop — in this case, the virus that causes COVID-19. The harmless impostor which is injected into the body can induce the immune system to fight and kill the targeted virus, providing protection.
Technically named ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, the vaccine developed by Hill and his team is made from a virus called ChAdOx1, which is a weakened and non-replicating version of a common cold virus (adenovirus). The vaccine has been engineered to express the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, the Oxford University said.
Since it was first developed in April, the vaccine has gone through Phase I human trial with more than 1,000 healthy adult volunteers immunised. The Phase II trial has also been completed and the institute is now on Phase III trial in three countries which involves assessing how the vaccine works in a large number of people over the age of 18.
For Phase III trial, over 4,000 participants are already enrolled into the clinical trial in the UK and enrollment of an additional 10,000 participants is planned. The Oxford University announced on Tuesday June 23 and Sunday June 28 that volunteers in South Africa and Brazil respectively have also begun receiving the trial vaccine in the first Phase 3 COVID-19 clinical trial.
“We are probably the first group globally to go into Phase 3 and to hopefully get a result, one way or the other, on whether our particular vaccine is working,” Hill told Barclays in May.
Among the hundreds of vaccines being developed across the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified the candidates developed by Hill’s team as the front-runner.
The Institute’s work on coronavirus grew out of Hill’s previous attempt to develop a malaria vaccine after his visit to Africa in the early 1980s. He became fascinated with malaria and other tropical diseases as a medical student in Dublin in the early 1980s when he visited an uncle who was a priest working in a hospital during the civil war in Zimbabwe.
While much attention has been concentrated on organisations and individuals making donations to fund vaccine development and also help people affected by the virus, Prof Adrian Hill and his team at the Jenner Institute of Oxford University deserve commendation for using their scientific power to make impact when and where it matters. Neusroom and the entire world celebrates them!
