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Vaccine Optimism

Progress in the development of vaccines against SARS-CoV2

05 August 2020

Vaccine Optimism

In case you hadn’t heard, SARS-CoV-2 is a menace. Around the world, it is destroying people’s lungs and lives. Here, it is pictured (purple) killing a patient’s cell (green). But while the virus is relentlessness, so too is the global effort to develop a vaccine. Indeed, more than 165 anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates are currently in various stages of preclinical and clinical testing. It's unknown which if any of these will be successful, but recently there has been a flurry of encouraging results. Several candidate vaccines have been found to be safe and to induce neutralising antibodies – immune factors that recognise and bind to the virus – and T cells – immune cells that kill virus-infected cells. There are of course still many unanswered questions, such as will any of the vaccines actually protect against infection and, if so, for how long. But, for now at least, signs are hopeful.

Read a selection of COVID-19 vaccine research papers recently published in The Lancet here: 1., 2. , 3.

Written by Ruth Williams

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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