Guaranteed Ingredient in Any Coronavirus Vaccine? Thousands of Volunteers – The New York Times

Thats the beauty of these DNA vaccines, said Wolfgang W. Leitner, the chief of the innate immunity section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. They are simple and fast in terms of development.

Nor are vaccine scientists concerned about the supposed secret sauce. In fact, its quite the opposite: They are skeptical precisely because the technology behind DNA vaccines has been around for decades and has been applied toward so many infectious diseases H.I.V., the flu, malaria yet none of the vaccines have made it to market.

They believe that this approach is capable of producing immunity. Already, DNA vaccines have been licensed for use in pigs, dogs and poultry. But the big if, according to Dr. Dennis M. Klinman, a vaccine scientist who worked at the Food and Drug Administration for 18 years, is whether one will ever be able to generate strong enough an immune response in humans.

Even though Ms. Wiley had read the packet on the science of it all, the next step felt like entering uncharted territory.

Shortly after the initial injection, a nurse handed Dr. Ervin a device resembling an electric toothbrush. He pressed the head which contains three tiny needles instead of bristles over the raised skin on her arm, where shed just had a shot. Then he zapped her.

It was not painful, but its unlike anything Ive ever experienced, Ms. Wiley said.

The carefully calibrated electrical pulses basically steer the DNA into the cells by briefly opening up pores in their membrane, according to David B. Weiner, the director of the vaccine and immunotherapy center at the Wistar Institute and an adviser to Inovio.

Although it may sound fantastical, the technology, called electroporation, dates to the 1980s, when a similar approach was first used to make transgenic plants, according to Dr. Leitner.

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Guaranteed Ingredient in Any Coronavirus Vaccine? Thousands of Volunteers - The New York Times