Why this vaccine may not get off the ground

AN Australian scientist has produced five vaccine candidates against COVID-19, four of which are being tested in mice, but he can’t get funding to take them into human clinical trials.

Professor Bernard Rehm from Griffith University says his vaccines, which use a unique rapid response technology, are cheap and can be produced quickly.

“In two weeks we could supply enough vaccine for the whole of Australia — it is unprecedented,” he said.

The mice, which were divided into four groups and given three doses of a candidate vaccine, showed no adverse effects.

The team will know in three weeks whether they produce antibodies that neutralise the virus that causes COVID-19.

They will then pick the strongest vaccine candidate for further research, but experts warn most prospective vaccine candidates fail in this early pre-clinical phase.

Professor Rehm has just one staffer who is literally working around the clock and covered in mouse bites as he carries out the testing.

“You really need 10 postdoctoral students and 10 research assistants to do this work,” Professor Rehm said.

The academic has been working on the technology for 10 years and has produced experimental vaccines against tuberculosis, meningitis, pneumonia and hepatitis C that prevented illness in mice. He said he was still waiting to find out if he had won $2 million in funding from the government’s Medical Research Future Fund — but he will need more than that amount to progress the research.

“We need in the range of $7 million to take this into human clinical trials,” he said. Associate Professor Paul Griffin from the University of Queensland, who is conducting human clinical trials of a

US vaccine for COVID-19 for Nucleus Network, said it was too early to say if the Griffith University vaccine held promise.