part of the study the team will look to assess safety and find the optimal dose of the vaccine in 15 healthy participants aged 18 to 45 at a west london facility the first participant will receive a very low dose of the vaccine before the team escalates to increasingly higher doses for subsequent volunteersfollowing this initial small group the team will then recruit further healthy volunteers aged 1875 to trial the optimal dose of vaccine in a larger population the combined phase iii studies will aim to deliver the vaccine to a total of 300 people at the west london facility and additional sitesall volunteers will receive two doses of the vaccine over two visits an initial dose and then a second boosting dose four weeks latermany traditional vaccines are based on a weakened or modified form of virus or parts of it but the imperial vaccine is based on a new approach it uses synthetic strands of genetic code called rna based on the virus genetic material once injected into muscle the rna self amplifies generating copies of itself and instructs the bodys own cells to make copies of a spiky protein found on the outside of the virus this should train the immune system to respond to the coronavirus so the body can easily recognise it and defend itself against covid19 in futurekate bingham vaccine taskforce chair said i am delighted that imperial college have so quickly advanced to the clinical trial stage their selfamplifying technology has the potential to be a real gamechanger not only for a covid19 vaccine but for the development of future vaccines its a great example of the worldleading life sciences sector in this countryby backing imperial college london and their alternative vaccine platform we have enhanced the uks vaccine portfolio increasing our chances of identifying a successful vaccine