COVID-19 Challenge Trials: Giving Volunteers COVID for SCIENCE! And the Future of Clinical Trials with Josh Morrison from 1DaySooner

Today we're joined by Josh Morrison, the co-founder and President of 1DaySooner. 1DaySooner is an organization that advocates for people who want to participate in high-impact medical trials, and their work with COVID-19 challenge trials really came into the limelight this past year. In essence, a challenge trial is a clinical trial in which the participant is not only exposed to a treatment ie vaccine or placebo but is also directly exposed to the condition that is being tested - in this case, COVID-19. To some, the idea of voluntarily being exposed to COVID can sound absolutely insane, but about 40,000 people, myself included, volunteered to be participants in these challenge trials before we had our initial vaccines. The truth is, albeit risky, this kind of study can greatly speed up the time required for a clinical trial, and ultimately save countless lives. Josh talks about his reasons for founding the organization, as well as the amazing progress they've made in pushing the frontier of challenge trials. With challenge trials already taking place in the UK, the future of them is exciting, and as Josh says, if they can speed up the development of future vaccines even 1 day sooner, it would all be worth it.

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