Vancouver COVID-19 vaccine research gets Archbishop Miller’s support

This story was updated April 30 to include information that the UBC research project does not makes use of aborted fetal cells.

The Archbishop of Vancouver is throwing his personal support behind a local effort to develop a vaccine against COVID-19 and is making a financial contribution to the research.

“As a Church, we have a long history of supporting the sciences,” said Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, explaining why he decided to make a symbolic financial contribution to the project.

Archbishop Miller said he was “honoured to continue this tradition of supporting science and medicine for the benefit of all people,” adding Christians are called to be “proactive” in finding solutions to the pandemic. 

The archbishop is putting his support behind research by Vancouver immunologist Dr. Wilfred Jefferies and his team at the University of British Columbia who for several for months have been working on creating and testing a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19.

In an interview with The B.C. Catholic, Jefferies confessed his work was keeping him “incredibly busy. I am just running, running, multitasking, all the time.”

At the time of the interview, April 6, his vaccine candidate was one of about 40 around the world in the race to come up with a method to immunize against the virus.

Jefferies, a professor in UBC’s Michael Smith Laboratories and a senior research scientist in the university’s Vancouver Prostate Centre, is using a new technology discovered at a UBC lab a few years ago.

“We’ve engineered our vaccine candidate to have components which are called adjuvants. Those adjuvants were discovered at UBC and they boost the immune response and enhance longer-lasting immunity and have been tested in other experimental vaccines, for viruses such as influenza,” he said.

“We know that we can achieve optimal immune-responses at low doses using this class of engineered vaccines. We are applying those technologies to COVID-19. Overall, this vaccine approach has the potential to overcome a major obstacle in vaccine development for large global populations by reducing the dosage of vaccine required for complete protection, thereby reducing costs and manufacturing time, and ultimately, saving more lives.”

Jefferies hopes the vaccine he is working on will be able to protect against different strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19) and that the process will help scientists understand how to create better vaccines during future pandemics.

“We need as a nation to support and develop our own solutions to COVID-19,” he said.

“Canadians are really great at sharing. I’m sure if we develop our vaccine in Canada, we will be happy to share it with the world. It’s not clear whether other jurisdictions are going to be as generous with us.”

He expects it will be another four or five months before results from animal testing allow clinical trials of the vaccine.

Though there are dozens of other candidates for the vaccine out there, he believes it’s not a sprint to the finish line, but a marathon. “I think the public wants the best vaccine,” he said.

The first vaccine developed won’t necessarily be the best, said Jefferies. “Potentially the development process will continue until we get an optimal vaccine that works in creating widespread protection and containment of the virus.”

Pro-life leaders have warned in recent months that some researchers working to develop COVID-19 vaccines worldwide are using old cell lines derived from the cells of aborted babies.

Ryan Thomas, a special adviser to the archdiocese, said Archbishop Miller made sure UBC’s vaccine research did not make use of aborted fetal cells before he put his support behind it. It was important to the archbishop that in supporting science and medicine for the common good, the Church could be seen to be promoting research that Catholics can support in good conscience, said Thomas.

The research and effort that goes into producing a vaccine is expensive. So far, Jefferies’ project has received provincial funding in the form of a $100,000 grant from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research at UBC, as well as other donations totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars. Much more than that will be needed.

 While Jefferies works on a local vaccine, friend and businessman Peter Field has been raising awareness about the project and encouraging funding for it through the Sullivan Urology Foundation at fundcovid19vaccine.com.

“I’m behind Wilf because of his approach,” said Field. “I believe in him as a scientist and I believe in his approach, which is to create a safer vaccine.”

It seems many others do too, including Field’s contacts in the faith community such as Archbishop Miller who have “opened up some doors and are trying to get behind (Jefferies’) initiative and support it,” said Field.  

Archbishop Miller reiterated the point. “This is a time when listening to health officials and medical experts is our Christian responsibility to care for the common good.” He noted that St. John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Fides et ratio that faith and reason “are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”

The vaccine project, he said, “is one of the ways we want to help and seek truth.”

 UBC president Santa Ono is another high-profile Christian who supports Jefferies’ work.

In a statement, he noted Jefferies’ work on West Nile Virus, SARS, Flu H1N1 vaccines, and cancer vaccines. “We hope that his work can contribute to the creation of a timely COVID-19 vaccine at this crucial time in history.”

For Archbishop Miller, there may be an additional benefit from the research taking place around the world. “May the search for COVID-19 solutions also be a moment of solidarity, of collaboration, and of growing together as a visible sign to the world of the healing and reconciliation so needed right now.”

For more information about Wilfred Jefferies’ work and to donate to support his vaccine research, visit fundcovid19vaccine.com.

With files from Catholic News Agency