Scottish scientist developing vaccine warns there must be 'massive drop' in infections before lockdown ends

The Scottish scientist at the forefront of developing a lifesaving vaccine from coronavirus has warned that there will have to be a “massive drop” in infection numbers before the UK can come out of lockdown.

Dr Kate Broderick told the Scotsman that her firm are still on track to have a million vaccines available by the end of the year and described how the jab triggers the body’s immune system to respond.

The researcher, who is originally from Dunfermline, has been working with her team at pharmaceutical giant Inovio in San Diego, California, round-the-clock since news of the virus broke at the start of the year.

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Dr Broderick says “lockdown is the only answer we’ve got at the moment”, but said plans are in place to ramp-up production and get 50 to 100 million jabs released worldwide during 2021.

Kate Broderick: The scientist racing to find a vaccine to the coronavirusKate Broderick: The scientist racing to find a vaccine to the coronavirus
Kate Broderick: The scientist racing to find a vaccine to the coronavirus

Clinical trials started last week and three patients have been tested so far.

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Coronavirus: Meet the Scottish doctor working to create life-saving vaccine

Dr Broderck said: “We started our clinical trial last week - so we’ve treated three patients so far.

“It’s happening way faster than we’d originally projected and it’s going great, everything is on track and we feel that’s a huge achievement.

“We’re definitely still on track to get a million vaccines available by the end of the year and we’re really happy with the results that we’ve seen so far in the animal studies and now we’re testing human beings we’ll get those results soon.

“That’s going to help us get a handle on how the vaccine works in the general population.”

Dr Broderick is aware of a lack of testing being done here and in the rest of the UK but says this is “not a Scotland specific issue” acknowledging that there’s not enough testing being done all over the world.

The 42-year-old, who studied at Glasgow University before doing post-doctoral research at the University of California, has previously helped create successful vaccines for ebola, zika, lassa fever and Mers (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome).

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She described how the current vaccine will work in helping the body identify an intruder in the form of coronavirus.

She said: “I like to think of our vaccine as one of those criminal wanted posters.

“So, basically the genetic sequence that we give our bodies to look at, which is our vaccine is basically a template or a poster of what the virus looks like.

“So, it tells your body if you see this, if this virus comes to try and infect your sells - make sure that you attack it here basically.

“So, we give cells in the body kind of a ‘sneak peak’ at what the virus looks like, so that if you are infected it’s able to get the antibodies and the T-cells it needs to attack that virus and shut it down before it infects your whole body.”

Dr Broderick said that modelling will be important for her team when they start Phase 2 of testing as it will allow them to identify who to target the vaccine to. At the moment they use it as a tool to “look and see what the day-to-day status of the global disease spread is.

The US has now seen over 20,000 deaths from Covid-19 with more than 500,000 confirmed positive cases with New York being hit particularly hard with deaths reachind around the 10,000 mark.

Dr Broderick said: “That might have something to do with in New York there are a lot of apartments, so people are living in much closer quarters but we’re not really sure why it is so much worse.

“Los Angeles has been hit pretty badly but not nearly as badly as New York but I don’t think we’re seeing any evidence of a flattening yet - so the worst might be still to come.”

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