Tulane Professor Offers Personal Account Of COVID-19 Vaccine Trial

Tulane University history professor Walter Isaacson was one of 44,000 individuals to participate in Pfizer Inc.'s PFE COVID-19 vaccine trial, and the process was "pretty easy," he said during a Tuesday morning Fox Business interview.

'Citizen Science' In Vaccine Trials: Tens of thousands of individual signed up to to partake in "citizen science" to help vaccine makers better fight coronavirus, Isaacson said.

Participants have no way of knowing if they were injected with the vaccine or the placebo, but this is part of the process required to approve the vaccine, he said. 

Isaacson played a role in helping Pfizer determine that it's vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 cases.

At least one analyst has modeled the odds of success for the vaccine at 100%.

Tracking Volunteers: Volunteers are given access to a smartphone app, and trial participants are expected to use it to record their temperature, monitor potential swelling and comment on any other symptoms, Isaacson said.

This was on top of regular in-person blood tests to study antibodies.

Related Link: 2 COVID-19 Vaccine Plays You May Not Know

Advanced Biotech: The interesting aspect of Pfizer's RNA vaccine is it can be "re-programmed" to attack new viruses, and this represents the "new age of biotechnology," the professor said. 

"RNA is this miracle molecule and this is going to open up a whole new world of biotechnology."