Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital on Monday announced the start of Phase 3 of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trial involving 30,000 volunteers at the hospital. 

This study is one of several vaccine trials undertaken in the race to stop the coronavirus. Pfizer, of Groton, was recently awarded $1.9 billion in federal funding to test and manufacture six million doses of vaccine, one million by year’s end. 

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 Sanofi Pasteur, with a research and development facility in Meriden, was recently awarded $2.1 billion to test and manufacturer its vaccine candidate.   

“The Yale study is a collaboration between BioNTech SE and Pfizer using modified RNA,” a press release said. “Rather than using the part or whole of the actual virus in an inactive form to create immunity, this vaccine candidate uses a genetic code (modified RNA) to make the body generate proteins that resemble the SARS CoV-2 virus spike protein, thereby causing development of antibodies against it. Antibodies against the spike protein may block the infection from taking hold if the body comes in contact with the virus.”  

Phases 1 and 2 of the trial were recently peer reviewed in the scientific journal “Nature.” The review found the vaccine was safe and effective in generating an appropriate immune response. This third phase hopes to show that it can prevent infection.

“I am very excited that Yale New Haven Hospital and the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation  are undertaking this novel vaccine trial,” principal investigator Dr. Onyema E. Ogbuagu, said in the press release.

Ogbuagu is Yale New Haven Hospital’s infectious disease physician and associate professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine.