Second generation COVID-19 vaccine trial kicks off at Baylor College of Medicine

Baylor College of Medicine is looking for volunteers for a Phase 1 clinical trial that seeks to examine the safety, tolerability and immune response for different doses of a second generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

“Gritstone Oncology’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate has been designed to broaden the immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, with the goal of generating immune responses to provide protection against emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2,” said Dr. Jennifer Whitaker, assistant professor of medicine and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and principal investigator of Baylor’s trial site, in a May 26 news release.

The trial is one of many across the United States as Gritstone Oncology looks to initiate a Phase 2 trial later in 2021 examining the vaccine as a booster for people who have received a first generation vaccine, such as Pfizer or Moderna.

Participants must be age 18 and older, healthy with no known history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, no prior receipt of COVID-19 vaccines and at low risk of infection.

Participants will be asked to:

• commit to eight or more study in-person clinic visits and participate in four telephone visits over 13-16 months, receiving two injections of the vaccine and having several blood draws for safety monitoring and to see whether the vaccine resulted in an immune response; and
• keep track of how they are feeling after each injection. The study staff also will be in contact with each participant. The results of the immune tests in each vaccinated group will be shared with the participants a few months after the second vaccine.

Interested participants should email [email protected] or call 713-873-4192. Click here for more information on the trial.