While most traditional vaccines are created using a weakened or dead version of a virus that is injected into the body, Plymouth Meeting-based Inovio is taking a different approach with its COVID-19 vaccine development, writes Dr. Seema Yasmin for WIRED.
“Inovio is working on a DNA-based vaccine for COVID-19,” said Inovio Chief Executive Officer and President Joseph Kim in an interview with WIRED.
The company, which is currently conducting phase one studies on its vaccine, is one of the few that have already started human trials.
Despite coronavirus being RNA viruses, Inovio has found a way to combat the virus using antigens, molecules that are foreign to a body and can elicit an immune response.
“Inovio’s DNA vaccines work by injecting snippets of DNA as a vaccine into the person’s skin cells,” said Kim. “The DNA, once delivered, instruct the cells to manufacture the antigens encoded by the DNA.”
Once the antigens are produced in the body, the person’s immune system reacts by generating strong immune responses against them.
So instead of injecting the virus into the body, a DNA vaccine provides the body with some genetic code that the cells can use to make a small piece of the virus.
Watch the entire interview at WIRED below or by clicking here.
