Flinders University scientist Nikolai Petrovsky is taking great strides towards developing COVID-19 vaccine
Adelaide is leading the charge in Australia to develop the first COVID-19 vaccine, with a Flinders University professor set to start human trials within six weeks.
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An Adelaide scientist is set to become the first researcher in Australia to trial a COVID-19 vaccine in humans within weeks.
Flinders University professor and Vaxine Pty Ltd research director Nikolai Petrovsky planned to test COVAX-19 on 75 human volunteers in the next four to six weeks.
The Advertiser revealed last month that Mr Petrovsky had moved into testing his team’s vaccine, made with assistance of artificial intelligence, in animals in the United States.
Prof Petrovsky said volunteers would be injected with a traditional protein-based vaccine, rather than other types that used a live virus.
“It is the safest, the most proven and effective route to get a successful vaccine,” Prof Petrovsky said.
“All of these other vaccines that have been talked about in the last few weeks are highly experimental, a lot are live viruses, and that poses risks … because they are unproven technologies.”
He said making the vaccine had been a complex process and required more steps compared to live virus vaccine production, but “the end result is much better”.
“It is like The Tortoise and the Hare – you regard us as the tortoise coming in a few weeks after these live virus hares, but we are hoping to pass them in the next few months,” he said.
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Using experience in developing a SARS immunisation, Mr Petrovsky said the vaccine aimed to induce human antibodies ready to bind to the real COVID-19 spike protein.
It would block the virus from attaching to human cells in the respiratory tract then “stop the infection in its tracks”.
Healthy adult volunteers would receive two doses over about four weeks, then researchers would have to wait a further three weeks to evaluate the results.
Prof Petrovsky remained tight-lipped about the specifics of the trial and the study, other than researchers would use a “simple blood test” to determine if the vaccine had worked.
Should it be effective, it would need regulatory approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration to be sold.
About 50 million vaccines would be needed to immunise Australians across the country, which would require hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in production infrastructure.
He said it was “very important from a public health perspective” to have access to a local vaccine, rather than buy them from around the world.
“It is very important to have that ability, if needed, to produce your own vaccine because … you have immediate access and you won’t have to wait a couple of years until other countries have satisfied their need for vaccine,” Prof Petrovsky said.
Prof Petrovsky completed a scientific study, now under peer review, with LaTrobe University in Victoria, that found COVID-19 could have been created in a “cell-culture experiment” in a laboratory and was uniquely adapted for transmission to humans.
The University of Queensland is expected to start human trials in July for a recombinant protein vaccine.
South Australia recorded 17 days without any new cases and 10 days without any active cases.