WORCESTER – UMass Medical School [UMMS] seeks healthy volunteers for enrollment in a COVID-19 vaccine trial candidate.
The Phase II/III clinical trial will test whether a vaccine candidate can prevent infection with the virus that causes COVID-19.
The trial is by Pfizer and BioNTech and follows preclinical review data from a Phase I trial that assessed safety, tolerability and immune response in a group of volunteers.
UMMS will enroll several hundred volunteers in the trial that will span 120 centers and up to 30,000 healthy participants. Some 15,000 volunteers are already enrolled.
The Phase II/III clinical trial seeks volunteers who are healthy, non-pregnant and between the ages of 18 and 85.
The trial is a placebo controlled, double-blind study where half of the participants will receive the vaccine and half will receive a placebo. Neither volunteers nor researchers will know whether a participant received the vaccine or the placebo.
Participants will get two doses of either vaccine or placebo at the UMMS clinical research center with periodic follow-up visits over a two-year period.
Researchers hope to know by the fall whether people make antibodies in response to the vaccine.
Robert W. Finberg, MD, the Richard M. Haidack Professor in Medicine and chair and professor of medicine stressed that safety will be closely monitored, and that the trial is placebo-controlled, which is the most definitive way of determining if a vaccine is both safe and effective.
To learn more, visit the website for the study. People interested in participating can call (508) 856-5472.
