The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Fears for family driving scientist to find vaccine
Fife-born doctor and her team working all hours to find a treatment
A Fife-born scientist said she is driven by fears for her own family as she seeks a coronavirus vaccine.
Dr Kate Broderick’s team at a pharmaceutical giant in California is working round-the-clock to produce a vaccine and hopes to have a million doses ready by December.
The 42-year-old mother-of-two, originally from Dunfermline, told of worries for her husband and her sister, a nurse treating coronavirus patients, which are driving her work.
She said: “My husband Steve is immune compromised, so we have to be uber-careful. It means the kids are very much aware about my work. They know why mummy’s not around as much as I’d want to be right now.
“My family are all in Scotland and my sister’s actually a nurse for the NHS at the Queen Elizabeth in Glasgow and she’s certainly hoping we can help get that vaccine out there as soon as possible.”
Her sister is so worried about picking up and spreading the infection, she said, she changes out of her uniform in her back garden.
Dr Broderick’s team at Inovio, in San Diego, are ready to begin human clinical trials next month, working towards a million doses being ready for further trials or emergency use.
The vaccine could be tested on frontline medical staff, she said, and the company is also working with manufacturers across the world to see how production could be increased.
She said: “A million doses by December is a great start, but we need investment to ramp this up to tens or hundreds of millions of doses to protect the most vulnerable as soon as possible.”
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We need investment to ramp this up to protect the most vulnerable. DR KATE BRODERICK
The UK is the leading contributor to the international fund for a vaccine, having contributed £544 million to fight coronavirus, but the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations said it needed an additional $2 billion.
Dr Broderick described the UK Government’s funding pledge of an additional £210m as a “phenomenal gesture” which she hoped would be followed by other countries.
She said: “The fact the UK Government has made such a generous donation will hopefully encourage others. The reality is that vaccine development costs money and it takes time, but you can do it faster if you have more funding – so to get such a significant investment from the UK can make a genuine difference to the timeline for this.”
International Development Secretary Anne-marie Trevelyan said: “We are backing experts, including in the UK, to find solutions as quickly as possible to this pandemic. This will ultimately help us to save lives in this country.”