WE track the progress of a newly-developed vaccine, examine the benefits of repurposing existing vaccines, and see how a synthetic antibody can “distract” and neutralize the new coronavirus before it reaches healthy cells.
The recombinant vaccine that the team developed uses a chimpanzee adenovirus (called ChAdOx1) that is harmless to humans, inserting into it the spike protein gene of SARS-CoV-2.
As this approach to developing vaccines has been “extensively tested in other situations,” and the research group has a successful track record in this area (which includes developing a promising vaccine against MERS, a “cousin” of SARS), experts were hopeful a few months ago. The Jenner Institute have tested the vaccine, called the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine and found that two doses create a greater antibody response than one dose.
Phase I of the human clinical trials has already started. The researchers are testing a single dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 because research in macaque monkeys showed that a single immunization with the vaccine protected against lung disease
KIDS FEEL PANDEMIC STRESS TOO. HERE’S HOW TO HELP THEM THRIVE: As the pandemic continues, children are still mostly at home. Summer activities are canceled or up in the air, and many children are suffering confusion and stress. Parents may be stressed themselves, but there are ways to help kids feel better.
During the first few weeks of staying at home, Maryam Jernigan-Noesi’s 4-year-old son Carter was excited. His working parents were around him most of the day, and it seemed like a big extended weekend. But after a few weeks, she says, things changed.
Carter was used to a two-hour nap at school. But now at home, he didn’t want to nap. And at night, it was hard for him to get to sleep. “So in some cases, he was in bed just wiggling and twisting and turning,” Jernigan-Noesi says. He would tell his parents he wasn’t sleepy and couldn’t fall asleep.
As a child psychologist, Jernigan-Noesi knows that when children are emotionally distressed, they may revert to behaviors from earlier childhood. Those who are potty-trained may have accidents and wet the bed. Others may start thumb sucking again. “So, Carter, for example, who hasn’t been rocked to sleep in a while, wanted to sit in my lap and be rocked in the chair that I used to breastfeed him in and rock him to sleep when he was much younger,” she says.
A number of Jernigan-Noesi’s friends tell her their children, 8, 9 and even older are suddenly clingy, following parents around the house, asking them to sit in the bathroom while baths are taken and teeth are brushed.
Hopeful Covid-19 research: Testing new vaccines, repurposing old ones
