For the sake of the purity of the experiment, the developers conducted tests on themselves.
Employees of the national research center for epidemiology and microbiology named after N.F. Gamalei of the Ministry of Health of Russia (NITsEM) tested their own vector vaccine against COVID-19, and the experience was successful: there is immunity, no negative effects were found, reports “Interfax” with reference to the director Center, academician of the RAS Alexander Gunzburg.
“As for the developers, yes, they are not so much testing themselves as defending themselves, so that in the event of a pandemic they could continue to develop (…) Everyone involved in the development, respectively, is all protected,” Gunzburg said.
According to him, the vaccine did not give any complications.
This is a promising vector vaccine NITsEM based on adenovirus DNA, in which the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus gene is integrated. Adenovirus is used as a “container” to deliver the coronavirus gene to cells, start synthesis of the envelope proteins of the new coronavirus there (the very “corona” due to which the coronavirus got its name) and thus “introduce” the immune system to a potential enemy. Vaccines of this type are called vector.