WEBVTT - Inside the Race to Develop a Coronavirus Vaccine 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.960 It's Monday, April six. I'm Oscar Ramires from the Daily 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:06.840 Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:10.719 coronavirus update while we brace ourselves to make it through 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.319 this time. Right now, the scientific community around the world 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.120 is in a race to develop a vaccine for COVID nineteen. 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.279 There are currently at least forty three different vaccines and 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:22.919 development around the world, but the process remains slow. Well, 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.759 many things have changed about how to develop vaccines, such 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.120 as being able to target the DNA and RNA of 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.240 the viruses in quick fashion, the rest of the process, 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.600 testing in humans and also manufacturing for wide use, remains 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.080 very slow. That is why we might still be a 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.520 year away from an effective vaccine some months. Supermannian contributor 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.080 to The Guardian long Reads, joins us for the work 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.199 behind the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Thanks for 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.160 joining us a month happy. I wanted to continue talking 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.319 about coronavirus COVID nineteen, and one of the things that 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.040 everybody is racing for to get completed is a vaccine. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.560 We've been told for a while now, since this whole 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.680 pandemic started, that it was going to take twelve to 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.160 eighteen months something like that to really get an effective vaccine. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.040 And because it just takes a long time, the human trials, 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.840 the studying of it takes a long time. What has 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:19.720 changed is actually being able to get vaccine candidates. Uh, 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.200 that's changed, and it's much much quicker than it's been 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.080 in the past. Currently, there's at least forty three COVID 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.320 nineteen vaccines in development around the world, and everybody is 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.959 racing to to do this. There's one vaccine that was 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.039 made in sixty three days by the American biotech firm 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.959 nay More Moderna, and they're actually doing human trials already 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.120 though started on March sixteen. So some tell us a 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.440 little bit about the vaccine making process and and and 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:50.560 how it's changed over the years as well well. So 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.880 the vaccine, you know, the principle of vaccination hasn't changed 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.320 at all, right, I've any idea is to get um 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.400 your immune system to record eyes a virus or a 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:05.360 bacteria without actually making you sick. So what they used 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.200 to do earlier was they used to weaken a virus 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.600 or a bacteria and they would introduce that into your 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.359 body and your immune system would recognize it and it 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.120 would generate all these antibodies that tend to stay in 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.880 your system, so the body learns to fight this germ. 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.480 And then when you actually get infected with a full 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.119 strength strain of this pathogen, your body can fight it off. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.160 It has all these antibodies and t sales and you 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.960 can fight these pathogens. So that's how they used to 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.160 do it earlier, and that was the case for you know, 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.520 most of the twentieth century. They would take these viruses 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.560 of these bacteria and they would put them in cell cultures, 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.600 tissue cultures and labs, and they would try to weaken 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.000 these trains. And sometimes it was a really tricky process 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:47.959 to do. I mean, it's very difficult if you aren't 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.960 quite um, you know, in possession of the kind of 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.080 sensitive equipment that we have right now. The first step 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.560 forward from that was when scientists realized that, look, you 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.600 don't have to put the entire via it us into 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.280 a body. You can just put a part of the 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.480 virus or a part of the bacteria into the body 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.680 and the antibodies will still be generated. So they would 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.720 take like some molecules of a particular toxin that a 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.480 bacteria would release, or they would take a part of 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.000 the shell on the outside that the bacteria or the 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:22.079 virus have, and they would introduce these molecules into our bodies. 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.840 And that's you know, already sort of thousands of times 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.720 smaller than the bacteria or the virus itself, which are tiny. 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.200 And then what's happened over the last few years, and really, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:34.040 I mean, you know, this has been development for a while, 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.000 but genetic technology has only come up to a particular 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.840 speed and efficiency and power over the last few years. 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.760 Is that instead of making these molecules, you know, the 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.240 toxin or the protein shell or the outside, instead of 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.680 making them in labs or in factories, what scientists have 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.840 learned to do is to take short snatches of the 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:02.480 genetic material of the bacteria or the IRUs itself, which 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.120 you know, has the instructions coded to produce these toxins 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.080 or these protein shells and so on, and put the 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:14.000 genetic material directly into a body, into a vaccine, and 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:19.120 use ourselves, our bodies as factories for making these molecules. 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.359 So you've gone from introducing the whole pathogen to introducing 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.320 a part of the pathogen, to now introducing the genetic 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.240 material that codes for a part of the pathogen, so 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.520 you're just putting the gene you know, you're synthesizing these 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.520 genes outside in a lab and you're putting those genes 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.360 into your body. Now I should mention that this last bit, 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:42.039 the vaccines that use DNA or RNA, these genetic material vaccines, 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.800 you know, these are completely unproven. You know, they've they've 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:47.719 been sort of tested in labs, um there's been a 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:52.039 couple of human trials, but we haven't ever had a 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.839 real world vaccine out there that works on this principle yet. 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.400 So it's really fast to do, but we still don't 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.360 know whether it's and work, if it will go through 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.480 human trials and succeed and get out on the market 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.200 for all of us to use. And that's one of 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.039 the interesting parts about this is that, as you were 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.960 mentioning beforehand, UH scientists had to use parts of the 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.599 actual virus they were dealing with that organism there. And 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:18.080 now a lot of this stuff is being done on 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.799 computer modeling. You know. After China release the full genome 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.920 of the coronavirus of COVID nineteen, scientists were immediately getting 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.440 onto it to start seeing what they can do, what 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:31.800 they could use to try to make effective vaccines for it. 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.320 That's right. I mean, I think, like because sequencing the 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.040 genome of a small organism like a bacteria aut virus 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.560 is now so quick. You know, they have that, They 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:45.599 had that online and like mid January, and as I 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:47.080 say in my story, I mean that's sort of like 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.480 a startup stol for all these scientists everywhere to look 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.680 at the genome and try to understand what parts of 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.400 this virus, uh they might want to introduce them to 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.640 our body, and what parts of the genome code for 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.800 those sections of the virus, the sub units of the virus, 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.400 and so really that that's the you know, that's the 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.080 powerhouse beginning to this entire process. And then, as you 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:10.920 say quite rightly, I mean a lot of the work 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:15.280 happens in computers right up until they actually synthesize these genes. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.560 Everything is happening online. All this modeling is happening with software, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.000 and then they get these genes back and then they 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.039 start to deal with real world testing on mice and 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:27.800 other animals. And this is the part that takes obviously 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:30.040 the longest part. Now, I mean we're just talking about 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.560 how quickly now they can get this candidates, they can 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.840 figure something out. But the real world testing, the human trials, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.960 and then the manufacturing of this this is the slow part. 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.680 So when people say, hey, twelve to eighty months, this 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.200 is the bulk of the time right there. Yeah, I mean, 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.880 you know, both of these things are slow. So human 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.560 trials can only proceed at the lay at the rate 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.240 of human physiology. Right. We can't speed our systems up 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.160 to react quicker or slower to give scientists results, So 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.160 it has to go just as slow as as it 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.040 can go. Um. But but the problem also is human 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.279 physiology is so complicated. Uh, we can test these vaccines 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.559 as much as we want on computers or in mice, 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.640 but when it comes to putting something into a human body, 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.560 it's impossible to predict the kind of side effects it 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:18.920 will have, what kind of dosage will work, whether it 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.200 will work at all. You know, it's impossible to predict 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.000 all of this stuff. So that takes takes time. And 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:25.840 then the second part of it is just sort of 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.520 economics in a sense. It's business. Uh, you need a 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.000 big drug company with the equipment and factories and so 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:37.160 on to manufacture these huge doses of vaccines, but very 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.080 Often companies don't want to touch vaccines unless they're sure 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.960 there's like a profit margin in there for them. So 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.080 if they you know, if we come through human trials 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.160 for this vaccine, say by January next year, let's assume 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.240 I don't know if that's the right time scale, but 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.560 you know, by that time, coronavirus everywhere around the world 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.400 might have shrunk, the pandemic won't quite be as virulent 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:00.840 as it is now, and so companies at that point 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:02.200 might look at us and say, well, you know, we 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:03.800 don't want to touch this as a product. I mean, 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.400 there's not many people who need to be vaccinated. Most 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.960 of the world has immunity to it. So what's going 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.000 to happen? Then we have no way of knowing. So 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.240 there's so many moving parts in both how complex human 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.520 physiology is and in the economics of this. That's why 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.080 it's going to take twelve to eighteen months if we're lucky, 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.480 for a vaccine to be out on the market. And 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.120 we know that's true because it's happened before. There were 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.640 vaccines in the process for stars when that was going around, 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.439 and because you know, by the time they were getting 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.080 around to getting something that was viable. Everything had calmed 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.040 down with stars, so funding for that stuff dried up 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.800 very quickly. So I think this I'm I'm hoping this 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:45.160 might be a different case because there's a lot more 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.240 eyes on this. You know, it's this whole big thing 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.360 that everybody's kind of paying attention to, so hopefully it's different. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.720 But you know, we've gone through this process before. Um 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.840 you know, some of the experts have said that for 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:03.520 the cost of this vaccine to produce and manufacture enough 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.400 to maybe be the pandemic, it could be about three 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.319 billion dollars. But you know, as you mentioned, everything is 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.880 constantly changing with all of this. For this story, you 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.240 you actually spoke to a Canadian pathologist. His name is 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.200 Jonathan Heeney. He works with a company who's also working 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.960 on a possible vaccine. What can you tell us about 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:26.040 their work and you know what you're learning from them? Well, 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:29.600 so um perious company, which is called deal sin Vax, 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.880 is based here in Cambridge, England, where I live. And 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:36.400 you know, it's just the strangeness of the world right 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.560 now that they're about a twelve minute bicycle right from 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.679 where I live, and I was unable to visit because 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:43.640 you know, he can't take the risk of outsiders coming 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.800 in possibly carrying a virus and infecting his stuff, infecting him. 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.280 So we had to speak on zoom on like video conference, 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:52.800 even though he's so close to what I live. And they, 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.960 you know, like a lot of other UH labs and 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.800 universities and you know, companies around the world. They started 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.400 work as soon as genomal published in January twelve or 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.440 just after. UM. What they're doing is kind of different. 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.240 I think it's more ambitious. UH. They're trying to build 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:11.760 this vaccine that will not just work against this coronavirus 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.079 disease COVID nineteen, but also against you know, many members 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.640 of the family of coronaviruses. You know, so sours for example, 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.360 was caused by a coronavirus as well. And so their 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:27.280 idea is to get this vaccine, UH, to replicate within 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.640 us the production of common parts of all these viruses. 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.240 So every virus has something called a spike protein on 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:38.280 the outside of the shell, so they'll make maybe you know, 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.000 the vaccine will come into the human body and it 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.800 will make a part of the spike protein that is 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.920 common across all these coronaviruses. Maybe it'll make two or 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.280 three out of four other sections of the same viruses. 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.800 So there's two or three or four common elements floating around. 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.000 And the theory is that the antibodies that our body 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.679 releases will then be able to eventually work against all 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.640 of these coronaviruses. And this is his thing, right, he 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.880 needs things. He has a platform where he uh he's 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:09.320 done this for philo viruses, so um West Nile virus 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.400 for example, that diseases called caused by a fire of 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.600 philo virus, and he has a platform for that. He's 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.319 working on a universal flu vaccine which will hopefully work 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.320 against every kind of flu out there. So that's his 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.679 that's his big m o. And uh, you know, I mean, 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:26.600 as I said, as he says, it's early days. They're 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.560 still doing trials on mice. Uh. And he you know, 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:35.120 he says quite um, quite clearly that the vaccine field 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.800 has his graveyard full of dead vaccine candidates. So he's 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.000 quite realistic about his chances. But it's a it's an 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.360 ambitious thing to try for. And I I had a 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.560 great time talking to him. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.160 And at the same time, you know, you mentioned the 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.480 article talking to a bunch of people. Excuse me, you 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.000 mentioned the article talking to a bunch of people. We 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:57.320 have to avoid overpromising because if there ever was something 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.520 to go wrong and accident with these vaccines, that's why 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.120 we needed take the time to do the clinical trials 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.040 and really get all the data. You know, it could 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:05.920 turn people off to getting it, you know, if there's 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.079 something that goes wrong. You know, while it might help 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.800 to avert COVID nineteen or other coronaviruses, people might not 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.839 want it after that. So it's a very tricky situation. 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:17.880 And I know the United States has fast tracked a 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:19.599 lot of things. We're doing a lot of trials and 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.600 you're trying to do it very quickly, but we've got 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.520 to take the time to get it right some months. 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.680 Supermanian contributor to The Guardian long Reads. Thank you very 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.920 much for joining us. Thanks Oscar, I'm Oscar Ramirez, and 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.959 this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:37.960 For today's big news stories, you can check me out 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.000 on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:43.360 follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:44.119 your podcasts.