Will a vaccine for COVID-19 be safe? Animal testing, human clinical trials and post-approval surveillance give us good grounds to believe that a future approved vaccine will work and be safe.
Scientists have developed and tested a new anti-clotting drug in mice that shows promise for treating heart attacks and stroke. It may also prove useful for COVID-19.
Word that the U.S. has bought up the entire supply of the COVID-19 drug remdesivir is another reminder that in a pandemic, treatments and vaccines need to be accessible to everyone, globally.
It usually takes 10 years for a new vaccine to complete clinical trials, but we’ve been promised a COVID-19 vaccine in 12 to 18 months. Even if such fast-tracked development is possible, is it wise?
Ayfer Ali, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Drug repurposing represents our only hope for the treatment of COVID-19 in the short term. But quick and rigorous trials need to be run to provide evidence these drugs work.
Canada is investing millions to develop COVID-19 treatments, but there are no safeguards to ensure that those vaccines and medications will be affordable and accessible to the people who need them.
The aim is to discover, develop and facilitate delivery of anti-malarial medicines to help tackle the burden of malaria in endemic countries and support malaria eradication.
Destruction of rainforests through wildfires or deforestation may harm human health. As these forests disappear, we may be losing precious medicinal plants that hold treatments for various diseases.
Box jellyfish stings are excruciating and occasionally deadly. We have identified a common, cheap drug that is already on the market and which could be a treatment candidate with further development.
Developing drugs is typically the domain of large pharmaceutical companies. But here is an example of drug development for a rare pediatric brain cancer that was done in a university setting.
Nature doesn’t always make the things we need so three Nobel Prize winners figured out how to fast-track evolution in the lab to create medicines, biofuels and industrial chemicals for modern life.