The heroes of Oxford

In the six long months since the coronavirus spread worldwide, this is the most welcome news from clinical trials for a vaccine to stop the disease. Only the announcement in June by Boston-based pharmaceutical company Moderna that its research was going ahead and it was starting to test its vaccine in humans will dispute that news leadership. But what Lancet publishes exceeds even the expectations of Moderna and its technical director Juan Andres, because it emphasizes the success achieved in acting on the immunity of the patients tested with its formula. The T cells were their target, and these lymphocytes are reinforced in the tests that the University of Oxford has carried out in its trials with a thousand long people (1077 in total) to experiment with the vaccine. 

Being profane, the surprise of the scientists' expertise is enormous with this project called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. It comes from the chimpanzee flu, which requires a superlative degree of preparation to interrelate species and draw positive conclusions by mixing diseases from one and the other. They have isolated this virus from the cold of the monkeys, and have modified it to resemble as much as possible the coronavirus that we all know as the real devil, with its nucleus and its extensions as suckers.

And to do this, they have injected the protein with which the current virus penetrates the cells of the human body, so that it generates more antibodies in the immune system. When these antibodies manage to adhere to the surface of the pathogen, they will deactivate the disease, and their coordinated action with T-lymphocytes is like that of an infantry regiment which, at the most decisive moment of the battle, is joined by the cavalry brigade's charge in close quarters against the enemy. So easy to tell, and so difficult to achieve...

Like the medical profession, police officers, soldiers of all armies, professionals in general in the service of others, the gratitude that society can give to researchers who are looking for the antidote to this 21st century evil will never be enough. The admiration is embodied by Professor Andrew Pollard, who has spent years working on paediatric immunity at Oxford University, has worked with children in countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh, and is leading the research. Or Professor Sarah Gilbert, who is also involved in this vaccine and has been making and testing T-cell generating vaccines to tackle malaria and flu for a decade.

The University of Oxford has a body such as the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU), founded in 1991 and based in Ho Chi Minh City. Oxford's research experience is directly proportional to its prestige. Twenty-eight British Prime Ministers have studied within its walls and gardens, including Heath, Wilson, Thatcher, Atlee, Blair, Cameron and Theresa May, as well as scientists such as Stephen Hawking, writers such as Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll and Graham Greene, and film stars such as Hugh Grant.

It is not only the scientific community that deserves such admiration. Guinea pigs, now a thousand and later a tenfold increase, in the United Kingdom and in the other countries where research is carried out, must be considered equally as heroes of this peculiar war against the invisible enemy. Boris Johnson has realised the importance of this research and has already committed public money for its development and for the purchase of one hundred million doses. Governments are keeping their eyes on the prize, and in the United States too, President Trump has boasted of the probable vaccines that are on the way. This brings to the fore the question that was already being discussed at the beginning of the lockdown: whether the vaccine should be a mandatory public good once it is discovered and proven to be effective with few side effects. International cooperation is essential in this regard, even if this declaration of the universal interest of the formula to eradicate the virus may be a chimera.

For example, the levels of coronavirus per affected individual in the UK are considered to be low relative to other countries, so the collaboration of other European governments and companies will be needed to achieve full success. The United States, South Africa and Brazil have already joined the Oxford test at a global level because only in this way will humanity manage to totally defeat this health threat. More than twenty vaccines against COVID-19 are being tested worldwide, and two hundred more projects are being developed in the early stages, although with a view to extending the time and investment. Oxford is ahead of the curve, but many of them will still make it to the finish line.