Covid-19 vaccine could come out of Galilee in a few days

Israel is days away from completing the active component of a Covid-19 vaccine; it can be tested on humans starting June 1.

Israeli scientist working in a laboratory at the MIGAL Research Institute

“We are already in the final stages and in a few days we will have the proteins, the active components of the vaccine,” said Dr. Chen Katz, leader of the Galilee Research Institute (MIGAL).

Human testing will be conducted on “young, healthy individuals” and will likely be extended to the general population. Katz believes the vaccine will be available primarily in Israel.

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MIGAL announced in late February that it would complete production of the vaccine in three weeks and market it in three months. Katz said the process was delayed because it took longer than expected to receive the genetic construct they requested from China — due to the shutdown of the airway and the redirection of the product.

MIGAL has been developing a vaccine against infectious chicken bronchitis virus (IBC) for four years, and the drug developed against Covid-19 is an adaptation of this first research.

“Our basic concept was to develop a general technology and not a specific vaccine for this or that type of virus,” Katz said.

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He also explained the genetic adjustments that allowed the substance to be adapted for use in humans: “The scientific structure of the vaccine is based on a new protein expression vector, which forms and secretes a soluble chimeric protein, which delivers the viral antigen to the mucosal tissues by self-activated endocytosis, causing the body to form antibodies against the virus”.

The scientist further explained that, because it is oral, “the quality of this type of vaccine must be closer to food regulations than to pharmaceutical regulations, or somewhere in between. We hope we don’t have to go through the whole purification process, like in the pharmaceutical industry, because that can slow us down.”

The Ministry of Science and Technology is funding the research and has already advanced the process of finalizing and commercializing the drug.

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About 100 research teams worldwide are focused on developing a vaccine for the new virus, several of them in Israel.

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