Coronavirus Vaccines – An Introduction

Leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates rely on new technologies that have fast-tracked development and testing. Vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna have completed early phase 3 clinical trials and are reportedly under review at the US FDA for emergency use authorization (EUA) although safety surveillance continues. This video explains the principles underlying the leading DNA, messenger RNA (mRNA), and viral vector vaccine candidates, and how they might induce immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

0:00 Introduction 1:21 Traditional vaccines 2:00 COVID-19 vaccine types in development 2:18 Making vaccines from a genetic sequence 2:45 Target antigen: the S protein 3:32 Genetic vaccines (DNA and mRNA) 4:18 Moderna/NIH and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines 4:52 Viral vector vaccines 5:42 Adenovirus vectors (University of Oxford/AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Pharmaceuticals) 6:32 rVSV vector vaccine (Merck/IAVI) 7:15 Previous experience with next generation vaccines 7:50 Importance of Phase 3 Trials