First Real Covid-19 Vaccine

COVID-19 Vaccine invented in Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is now seeking approval from the FDA for a candidate vaccine. it could eventually be used in the battle against COVID-19. However it may be a tool for other vaccines all around. This vaccine method is now being published in a peer-reviewed journal and doctors believe it could change the way vaccines are delivered worldwide. it looks like a small piece of Velcro and it's officially called a micro-needle array. It's a lot like a band-aid with hundreds of small needles. In this particular case the needles are made out of the sugar substance and the vaccine is incorporated actually directly into the needles combined. This innovation is the research of a man who has worked on coronaviruses for years including the first SARS outbreak in 2003 back then we didn't have the knowledge that we have now on what is needed to build an effective vaccine against the coronaviruses in general. That was the first emergence of Coronavirus. Now those years of research and understanding are being combined with the new technology.

The researchers are saying 'we think we have generated that format of vaccine that could be very effective. It could be relatively easy to manufacture and to apply from a clinical standpoint". The microneedle array has many advantages. This is an incredibly safe approach. there is no bleeding with this approach, there's no pain because the needles are not long enough to reach the circulation or nerves. In addition to that the amounts of antigens that are being used are so small that they don't cause any adverse effects. Each of the 4l 400 microneedles is the width of a human hair and they're only half a millimeter long the whole thing is made of liquid sugar and mixed with the antigens that doctors want to use in a vaccine.

When the microneedles are hard they're able to penetrate the outer layers of the skin and then as they absorb moisture they actually dissolve and release the antigen into the skin. So the needles are actually the vaccine.

Doctor Louis Falco hopes the next step is approval to take the microneedle array candidate to clinical trials but he says the most important thing is finding an answer. He says "The only competition here is the competition with the virus. I think we're all trying to work in the same direction. I think it’s better when we don't compete with each other that we work together on this and I think the virus is the real enemy here."

They have started the process filing for Phase one clinical trials with the Food and Drug Administration, USA. It is a lengthy process often spanning 8-9 months. However in light of the worldwide pandemic, Researchers are hopeful that they will receive approval and be allowed to begin moving forward with additional testing.  They are working with a lot of different people, biologists, skin biologists, dermatologists.

Your skin is really the first barrier against diseases, against bacteria against viruses. It is what we're looking out for in the case of perhaps coronavirus or perhaps flu or something else. You can say then that your skin basically becomes a new barrier against that disease because it doesn't go down into the blood there's no pain it doesn’t get to a nerve level it literally goes into the first layer of skin and introduces the antigen and from then it starts building antibodies against this virus and that is where this whole thing could be a game-changer. It also doesn't have to be refrigerated which means that from a worldwide standpoint you take it to Africa to South America, to the deserts, to the mountains this becomes a whole different way of perhaps getting medicine to people.

It's very exciting but still everyone’s anxious for it to happen right away. It will take a 12 to 18-month timeframe. Right now the researchers are anxious about that too and again one can't change how long those things take. The question is "can they speed up the process of getting approval to begin the next phase of trials?" And this amount of time is necessary for enough testing’s to see if the antibodies are developed properly and if the vaccine is ready to use. It is a long way to go but still this is something new and hopeful.