College fund to aid cash-blow students
»»Chinesetrials are impressive, says top expert »»But Irish Prof cautions it’s still early days for jab
A NEW emergency fund to help hardpressed students during the pandemic has been launched by Dublin City University.
BT Ireland has partnered with the university to match the first €25,000 donated to the pot.
The move means that DCU friends and alumni who support the appeal can double the impact of their gift for struggling students.
DCU president Prof Brian Maccraith said: “We know that this crisis is creating significant difficulties for our Access students, and for many other students too, but we are determined that no student should feel unable to pursue or complete their higher education at DCU due to financial hardship caused by Covid-19.” ■■DCU friends and alumni who wish to donate to the DCU Covid-19 Student Emergency Fund should visit www.dcu.ie/ covidappeal.
A TOP immunologist has said a vaccine trialled by Chinese scientists in monkeys to protect against Covid-19 is impressive.
Prof Luke O’neill from Trinity College Dublin stressed its early days but added there are three jabs showing “promise”.
However, he claimed some companies around the globe are “jumping fences” and in the end it’s production of the vaccine that will win the race.
Prof O’neill said the search for a cure was “a frenzy” and normally he would read up to three papers every week about potential breakthroughs but now it’s 10 a day.
He said: “The amount of science going on behind this is incredible.
“There have been really interesting developments with the vaccines, there’s three vaccines now that are showing even more promise. “They’re releasing data slowly.” One of the papers published was about a vaccine Chinese scientists have been exploring. According to reports, researchers from a Beijing-based company Sinovac Biotech gave two different doses of their Covid-19 vaccine to a total of eight rhesus macaques.
Three weeks later, the group put SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, into the monkeys’ lungs through tubes down their tracheas, and none developed a full-blown infection.
Monkeys given the highest dose gave the best response and lower dosed animals had a “viral blip” but had also appeared to have “controlled” the infection.
Prof O’neill said: “The Chinese one is the best because that’s coming out of Science, one of the most eminent journals.
“The Chinese one is most impressive so far.
“So again it is pretty well refereed by the experts and.. they got sterilising immunity in monkeys.
“They couldn’t detect any virus, there was no evidence of infection because their immune system was now able to
Prof Luke O’neill