China's No. 1 Insect Cell-Grown Vaccine Kicks Off Human Trial to Prevent Covid-19
Qian Tongxin
DATE:  Aug 31 2020
/ SOURCE:  Ycai
China's No. 1 Insect Cell-Grown Vaccine Kicks Off Human Trial to Prevent Covid-19 China's No. 1 Insect Cell-Grown Vaccine Kicks Off Human Trial to Prevent Covid-19

(Yicai Global) Aug. 31 -- The first group of volunteers have received doses of China's No. 1 vaccine candidate based on insect cells to prevent Covid-19 infections in Chengdu.

The trial participants, who got the first dose on Aug. 29, have reported no side effects so far, the southwestern Chinese municipal government said on its Weibo account on the same day.

In a global race to come up with the first marketable vaccine against the new coronavirus, Chinese scientists at Sichuan University's State Key Laboratory of Biological Therapy received the go-ahead from drug authorities to start testing their novel technology, deemed to be fast to mass-produce, in humans.

The National Medical Products Administration gave the recombinant protein Covid-19 vaccine the green light for phase-three clinical trials on Aug. 21, lab director Wei Yuquan told Yicai Global.

The inoculation has blocked Covid-19 infections in monkeys without significant side effects, the lab wrote in its report published in Nature on July 29.

Before this, insect cells have been used in recombinant protein vaccines to prevent cervical cancer and influenza by products sold in the US and Europe. The technology, which infects cultures of insect cells with a virus and turns them into factories of a protein that stimulates an immune response, is touted to be easy to use at a large scale.

But questions remain. Insect cells and human cells are different so the safety and efficacy of the vaccine candidate remain to be seen, an executive at a biomedicine firm told Yicai Global.

It is common to use insect cells in labs but mammalian cells are the more familiar choice for products designed for human use, said a virologist researching Ebola.

Editors: Zhang Yushuo, Emmi Laine

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Keywords:   Covid-19,Vaccine,Clinical Trials