Clinical trials initiated at RGH Medical Center for testing an mRNA flu vaccine, drawing insights from the COVID-19 pandemic experience.
In an effort to combat potential resurgences of flu and covid symptoms this fall, Dr. Edward E. Walsh, M.D., and other health professionals are taking part in a phase 1 clinical trial for Pfizer and BioNTech's new mRNA flu vaccine.
The trial, which is also being conducted at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the University of Rochester Medical Center, and Rochester General Hospital, aims to determine the safety, immune response, and optimal dosage of the vaccine.
Dr. Angela Branche, M.D., believes that mRNA may be a better vaccine strategy due to the high effectiveness of covid symptoms mRNA vaccines and their potential to protect against current flu strains.
Each volunteer in the study will receive a single dose of the experimental flu vaccine and have four follow-up blood draws over two months. The phase 1 study will enroll 350 healthy adult volunteers age 65-85 across all 12 sites, with approximately 50 enrolling at the University of Rochester Medical Center and Rochester General Hospital sites.
The current flu vaccines take a long time to produce due to the quick mutation of the flu virus. By contrast, mRNA vaccines can be produced quickly and easily tweaked to target new virus strains. This could prove crucial in the fight against a rapidly evolving virus like the flu.
Rsv, which can be serious in infants and older adults, leads to 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths among older adults in the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Walsh will also soon take part in an rsv vaccine trial.
Pfizer and BioNTech are adapting the technology from their covid symptoms vaccine to create an mRNA flu vaccine. If an mRNA flu vaccine is as effective as covid symptoms vaccines, it could save thousands of lives.
The World Health Organization estimates that between 290,000 and 650,000 people worldwide die from severe cases of seasonal flu each year. The mRNA vaccines deliver short snippets of a virus's genetic material to get host cells to make a small, harmless portion of the virus to induce an immune response.
Interested participants can sign up for the flu vaccine trial at Flu.urmc.edu and check the website frequently for information about the upcoming rsv study. Pfizer's covid symptoms vaccine was the first mRNA vaccine to be approved for use in humans by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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