• The University of Queensland team developing a COVID-19 vaccine say it has returned promising early results.
• Pre-clinical trials showed high levels of virus antibodies were produced to neutralise the virus.
• The early success ensures the vaccine, supported by the federal government as well as global NGOs and biotech companies, remains on a fast-track to development.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Australia may be at the fore of the global race to vaccinate against the deadly coronavirus.

The University of Queensland (UQ) has been racing to develop one since being tasked with it by the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness Initiatives (CEPI) and on Wednesday revealed it has passed one of its early pre-clinical tests with aplomb.

“This is what we were hoping for, and it’s a great relief for the team given the tremendous faith placed in our technology by CEPI, Federal and Queensland Governments and our philanthropic partners,” UQ professor and project co-leader Paul Young said in a statement.

“We were particularly pleased that the strength of the antibody response was even better than those observed in samples from COVID-19 recovered patients.”

The early results were tested by none other than the Doherty Institute, the body behind the federal government’s COVID-19 modelling, which found the vaccine raised a high level of antibodies in the blood to neutralise the virus.

“This is a very important finding because similar immune responses with SARS vaccines in animal models were shown to lead to protection from infection,” Doherty Institute professor and a director at the World Health Organisation Kanta Subbarao said.

The finding not only validates the work researchers have been dedicating to the cause but also maintains the accelerated timeline they are working to in order to fast-track its vaccine, given continued success.

While Australia will quickly lay claim to it if researchers do manage develop one, the project has received global support including from Dutch pre-clinical lab Viroclinics Xplore.

“Viroclinics Xplore is investigating in more detail the vaccine’s ability to protect from direct challenge by the live virus in multiple animal models, and without this partnership this just wouldn’t have been possible in this time frame with the capabilities we have here in Australia,” joint project leader Keith Chappell said.

It’s also received significant commercial backing in order to keep the project funded and running smoothly. It’s been helped along by the likes of former General Electric life sciences company Cytiva and Australian blood giant and biotech darling CSL among others.

“When you start combining clinical readiness with scale-up manufacturing, the costs quickly escalate and our primary goal here was to try and break down the financial constraints as much as we could,” program director Trent Munro said.

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