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mRNA vaccine is first fully made-in-Canada vaccine to undergo trials
TORONTO and CALGARY, AB, Dec. 23, 2020 /CNW/ - Providence Therapeutics today announced that Health Canada has provided a Notice of Authorization for its Clinical Trial Application. This permits the Canadian biotech company to begin human clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine. PTX-COVID19-B is a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine and is the first fully made-in-Canada COVID vaccine to reach this stage of development.
Health Canada s authorization means Phase I clinical trials will begin early in the New Year. Later phase clinical trials are expected to proceed in 2021, subject to regulatory approval.
Tania Watts (L) and Mario Ostrowski (Handout)
New findings from Temerty Faculty of Medicine researchers may help explain why SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – can cause more severe inflammation and lung tissue damage than a regular, seasonal influenza virus.
“The research helps us understand the immune response by people to the virus that causes COVID-19,” said physician Tania Watts, co-lead on the study and professor in the department of immunology. “We have gained insights into why some people might get severe outcomes from infection from SARS-CoV-2.”
Published in the Journal of Immunology, the study is based on blood cells taken in the spring of 2020 from 13 Canadians who had recovered from SARS-CoV-2, within the preceding four to 12 weeks.
Research teams in Montreal, Toronto looking at how COVID-19 impacts immunity
Last Updated Dec 17, 2020 at 1:23 pm MDT
FILE Specimens to be tested for COVID-19 are seen at a lab, in Surrey, B.C., on Thursday, March 26, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
MONTREAL – Research from two university teams is shedding a little bit of light on why COVID-19 patients have more severe side effects than those with the regular seasonal flu.
The teams, from the Université de Montréal and the University of Toronto are backed by Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF). The Toronto team recently had its findings shared in the Journal of Immunology.