European volunteer-registry to boost capacity for clinical studies on vaccines
The EU-funded research network Vaccelerate has now opened a European volunteer-registry of study participants for research on COVID-19 vaccines. The aim of this initiative is to boost the capacity for clinical studies on COVID-19 vaccines in the EU, but also to support vaccine research in future pandemics.
The Swedish part of the project is coordinated by the Karolinska University Hospital, with the support of Karolinska Institutet. International coordinator for the Vaccelerate network and volunteer registry is the University of Cologne in Germany.
The volunteer registry will facilitate European studies in which the effect of new or adjusted vaccines needs to be studied in large populations. These are clinical trials in phase 2 or phase 3, which means that the vaccines have already been proved to be safe to give to humans in so-called phase 1 studies.
Different background
The studies are carried out by university hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions that have been approved by Vaccelerate's management in Cologne. Information on how to register is currently available in nine languages, including Swedish.
“Vaccines need to be effective and safe for everyone, which makes it important to have study participants of different background, age, and gender. This is the reason why Vaccelerate has opened the first pan-European registry for people to volunteer as participants in future vaccine studies”, comments Dr Helena Hervius Askling, a member of the Vaccelerate project group, in a press release from the Karolinska University Hospital.
Register to participate in Vaccelerate
About Vaccelerate and EU
Vaccelerate is part of the EU's contingency plan for biological threats, the so-called Hera incubator, and is funded by the EU's research and innovation program Horizon 2020, grant agreement no 101037867. More than 400 study centers in Europe are registered in a common platform – the European Vaccine Trial Accelerator Platform (EUVAP). Karolinska University Hospital is the coordinator for Vaccelerate in Sweden. In total, the research network currently comprises 29 national partners, including Karolinska Institutet, in 18 EU member states and five countries associated to Horizon 2020.