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Profiles

Canadian Center for Vaccinology

The Canadian Center for Vaccinology (CCfV) is a Canadian research institute based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It operates out of the IWK Health Centre, and hosts the Canadian Immunization Research Network (CIRN).[1]

COVID-19

During the declared COVID-19 pandemic, the CCfV participated in numerous clinical trials and studies related to COVID-19 vaccines.

On May 12, 2020, the National Research Council Canada announced it would collaborate with CanSino Biologics to advance the latter's COVID-19 vaccine candidate called Ad5-nCoV.[2] Lakshmi Krishnan, director general of the NRC's Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre, said at the time that the trials in Canada would complement and expand on what had been done in China.[3] Testing on healthy human volunteers was to take place at the CCfV.

In August 2020, the collaboration fell apart amid rising tensions between the two countries.[4] According to the NRC, CanSino's state funding agencies (the Beijing Institute of Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China) had made changes to the collaboration agreement and had not authorized the shipment of vaccines to Canada. Scott Halperin, director of the CCfV, later described the attempted partnership as “a waste of a lot of time.”[5]

The CCfV ran the KidCOVE Study, testing the safety and effectiveness of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.[6][7][8] The center also ran a study evaluating VBI Vaccines' vaccine candidate, VBI-2905a, as a booster shot.[9][10]

The CCfV also ran the “MOSAIC Mix and Match COVID-19 Vaccines” trial with the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF), Vaccine Surveillance Reference Group (VSRG) and Dalhousie University studying the safety and efficacy of mixing and matching the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine products.[11][12]

Organization

The CCfV is partnered with the Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network,[13] and is a supporter of HELPinKids&Adults.[14]

Personnel

Name Position Notes
Scott Halperin Director[5:1] COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, Vaccine Surveillance Reference Group (VSRG)
Melissa Andrew Associate Member[15] National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia

  1. Contact Us. Canadian Immunization Research Network. Retrieved May 30, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230530144626/https://cirnetwork.ca/about-us/contact-us/ ↩︎

  2. National Research Council Canada. (2020, May 12). The National Research Council of Canada and CanSino Biologics Inc. announce collaboration to advance vaccine against COVID-19. Government of Canada. http://archive.vn/2020.05.17-214907/https://www.canada.ca/en/national-research-council/news/2020/05/the-national-research-council-of-canada-and-cansino-biologics-inc-announce-collaboration-to-advance-vaccine-against-covid-19.html ↩︎

  3. Zafar, A. (2020, May 12). Canadians to help develop, test potential COVID-19 vaccine from Chinese company. CBC News. http://archive.vn/2020.05.14-101734/https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/vaccine-cansino-1.5566216 ↩︎

  4. Cooke, A. (2020, August 26). Canadian COVID-19 clinical trial scrapped after China wouldn’t ship potential vaccine. CBC News. http://archive.vn/2020.08.28-161607/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/canada-china-covid-19-vaccine-trial-plug-pulled-1.5701101 ↩︎

  5. Pinkerton, C. (2021, March 12). “A waste of a lot of time”: Researcher in CanSino deal shares new details. iPolitics. https://web.archive.org/web/20220712033648/https://ipolitics.ca/news/a-waste-of-a-lot-of-time-researcher-in-cansino-deal-shares-new-details ↩︎ ↩︎

  6. KidCOVE Study. Canadian Center for Vaccinology. Retrieved November 5, 2021, from https://web.archive.org/web/20211105181716/https://centerforvaccinology.ca/study/kidcove-study/ ↩︎

  7. KidCOVE Study Brochure. (2021, February 8). Canadian Center for Vaccinology. https://web.archive.org/web/20220813004600/https://centerforvaccinology.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/mRNA-1273-P204_Rec-Brochure_V1_08February2021_ENG.pdf ↩︎

  8. KidCOVE Study Talking Points. (2021, August 4). Canadian Center for Vaccinology. https://web.archive.org/web/20250110020048/https://centerforvaccinology.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/20ck_Moderna_KidCOVE_Study-Talking-Points_v3_080421.pdf ↩︎

  9. COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Study. (2021, September 27). Canadian Center for Vaccinology. https://web.archive.org/web/20220116214255/https://centerforvaccinology.ca/study/covid19booster/ ↩︎

  10. Anderson, N. (2021, September 29). VBI Vaccines Announces New Preclinical Data and Initiation of VBI-2905 Clinical Study Targeting Broadened Immunity Against COVID-19 and Variants of Concern. VBI Vaccines. https://web.archive.org/web/20250110020300/https://www.vbivaccines.com/press-releases/initiation-of-vbi-2905-clinical-study/ ↩︎

  11. MOSAIC: 2 Mix and Match COVID-19 Vaccines + Boosters. Canadian Center for Vaccinology. Retrieved August 29, 2022, from https://web.archive.org/web/20220829035154/https://centerforvaccinology.ca/study/mosaic/ ↩︎

  12. Partners and Sponsors. Canadian Immunization Research Network. Retrieved June 2021, from https://web.archive.org/web/20210623014806/https://cirnetwork.ca/mosaic/partners-and-sponsors/ ↩︎

  13. Our Partners. Canadian Lyme Disease Research Network. Retrieved October 2, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20241002091231/https://www.clydrn.ca/about-the-network/our-partners/ ↩︎

  14. About Us. HELPinKids&Adults. Retrieved December 9, 2021, from http://archive.vn/2021.12.09-201306/https://phm.utoronto.ca/helpinkids/about-us.html ↩︎

  15. Melissa Andrew. Dalhousie University. Retrieved January 10, 2025, from http://archive.vn/2025.01.10-023054/https://medicine.dal.ca/departments/department-sites/medicine/divisions/geriatric-medicine/our-people/faculty/melissa-andrew.html ↩︎