Riding in Cars with Researchers - Difference in COVID-19 Treatment & Vaccine Trials

I'm Dr. Jeff Kingsley and welcome to another edition of Riding in Cars with Researchers. Let's discuss the difference between the treatment trials for COVID-19 and the vaccine trials for COVID-19 19. 

The treatment trials we're doing for COVID-19 are with monoclonal antibodies. So what we're doing is we're taking known antibodies that can bind the right receptor, bind the right protein, and give you protection from COVID-19. And we're giving you the antibody! If you've gotten infected with COVID-19, your body has not yet figured out how to defeat it. We can jumpstart you by giving you an antibody that is designed to be effective in defeating COVID-19. 

It's different in vaccine research where we're giving your body a chance to build its own immunity, build its own antibodies, in advance of you ever getting COVID-19. So if you get COVID-19, we're trying to give you an antibody in advance of your own body's ability to figure it out and say, “Hey, let's help you out here.” 

And in vaccine research, we're trying to get your body to develop that very same antibody, the right antibody in advance of you having ever randomly come in contact with COVID-19 in your community, your workplace, your household. So that if you do come in contact with it, you've already got the antibodies and the virus can't infect you because of that. 

That's the similarity and the slight difference between our treatment of research and our vaccine research.