Mineola’s NYU Langone Hospital–Long Island is one of three hospitals nationwide to conduct a COVID-19 nasal vaccine clinical trial, with the forefront of vaccine advancements happening in the North Shore’s own backyard.

The vaccine being studied is a single dose administered through both nostrils.

The trial consists of about 20 healthy volunteers from ages 18 to 64 in each cohort. All volunteers are screened before participation and then examined over about seven visits in the following year.

Dr. Martín Bäcker, the principal investigator at NYU-Long Island leading Langone’s clinical trial, said the new vaccine will deliver the vaccine’s “message” directly to the respiratory system, which is commonly affected by the virus.

“The virus has been shown that it likes the respiratory cells, so that’s an opportunity to use the virus to deliver these messages right to the site of infection with the virus,” Bäcker said. “How do we get infected with COVID-19? It’s not through the muscle in our arm which is where they usually, the vaccines that we currently use we give them in the muscle.”

The vaccine was established by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Project NextGen, which is seeking to advance the future of COVID-19 vaccinations.

“We know that the currently existing COVID-19 vaccines are very good. They are very good at preventing severe disease and death and that’s wonderful, but they do have, unfortunately, some limitations that most folks are familiar with to one extent,” Bäcker said.

Limitations of current vaccines Bäcker explained include the diminished effectiveness of the vaccine over time, the level of protection decreasing against emerging variants and its lesser ability to prevent mild infection.

Project NextGen is seeking to address one or all of these limitations through vaccine development, Bäcker said.

He said the hope of the nasal vaccine is to stop infections earlier, which could prevent milder infections and transmissions.

An additional goal of Project NextGen is to advance the COVID-19 vaccine field, Bäcker said.

He said that the original COVID-19 vaccines appeared to develop rapidly in response to the emerging virus, but were actually built upon the foundation of vaccine research that preceded it.

That is another caveat of the vaccine study, Bäcker said, which will hopefully also contribute to the vaccine field to be better prepared for other emerging viruses in the future.

Now four years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the public perception of  the COVID-19 threat to public health reached an all-time low in February following a consistent decline from early in the pandemic, according to Pew Research Center.

But Bäcker said this research is still important, especially with recent rises in cases and heightened concern for vulnerable community members like those with compromised immune systems and the elderly.

“We’re not just protecting ourselves, but we’re protecting others that are not able to get protections from the vaccines as they are right now,” Bäcker said.

The clinical trial is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, which has a partnership with NYU Langone.

The clinical trial is also being hosted at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and The Hope Clinic of Emory University in Georgia.

NYU Langone is currently in phase 1 of the clinical trial, with a total of three cohorts planned. Each cohort will receive a different dosage, starting from a low dose all the way to the full one.

Bäcker said the vaccine has already begun to be administered to some volunteers, but that they are looking for additional participants.

Individuals seeking to participate in the study can reach out for more information at (516) 663-3890 or [email protected].