New Zealand volunteers will be sought to have Covid-19 vaccines tested on them, although probably not until next year.
Otago and Victoria Universities are each working on a vaccine "candidate", and New Zealand researchers are also collaborating on overseas efforts.
The Government yesterday announced a further $10 million of funding for vaccine research, through newly formed Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand.
Alliance science director Associate Prof James Ussher, from the University of Otago, said yesterday that while overseas vaccine candidates looked promising, there was still value in New Zealand researchers working on "second generation" vaccines.
"There will be a need for second generation vaccines that potentially offer longer-term immunity or could be used in specific patient populations — the compromised or elderly or children etc.
"Those needs are very clearly there."
Prof Ussher said there was also the potential need to "update" vaccines if there was significant mutation in the virus.
There was also the potential for other coronaviruses to emerge.
"When there is a clinical trial we will be looking for volunteers to be willing to take the vaccine.
"Ideally, you would want people who hadn’t had the virus, and that’s kind of an advantage for doing these sorts of studies in New Zealand."
Prof Ussher said testing of vaccines was unlikely to happen for several months.
Testing a vaccine was necessary for reasons of safety, efficacy and "immunogenicity — whether it stimulates the right sort of immune response compared to other vaccines".
Vaccines would first be tested on mice, and researchers "certainly wouldn’t be putting it into people" if they didn’t think it was safe, he said.
"Whenever something’s going into humans for the first time you’ve got to do it with a phase 1 trial.
"A phase 1 trial has a small number of healthy people just to ensure it is safe."
Prof Ussher said some of the vaccines overseas had been given to people at the same time as the animal work was being done but that was only where there was already "good clinical experience".
Dr Davide Comoletti’s lab at Victoria University is working on a "recombinant spike protein vaccine" and Prof Miguel Quinones-Mateu’s lab at the University of Otago is working on an "inactivated virus vaccine".
