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Pitt enrolling participants in COVID-19 booster shot trial

PITTSBURGH — The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is enrolling volunteers in a mixed COVID-19 booster shot trial, through the Pittsburgh Vaccine Trials unit.

It’s one of twelve sites across the county selected to participate in a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases clinical trial in which fully vaccinated adults will receive a third “booster” dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The trial will study the safety and immune response of a mixed-booster regimen.

“As more and more COVID-19 variants are identified, we need to figure out how we, as a community, can stay protected,” explained Judy Martin, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the Pitt’s School of Medicine and member of Pitt’s Center for Vaccine Research. “The study’s design is not to show whether we need booster shots. Its focus is identifying which vaccine combinations are safe and provide the most protection against the virus that causes COVID-19 and its variants.”

Throughout the year, the volunteer participants will provide blood samples, which will be used to study their immune response against new variants of COVID-19. If participants contract COVID-19 throughout the duration of the study, investigators will assess whether a COVID-19 variant caused the infection.

While study participants will be followed for a year, initial results are expected in late summer 2021.

For more information on the Pittsburgh site of the trial, visit PVTU.org. The ClinicalTrials.gov identifier for this study is NCT04889209.