---
title: "Researchers Are About to Infect Humans With Home-Grown COVID Strain"
description: "the laboratory services company hVivo has now grown enough of the delta variant of the coronavirus to start infecting human volunteers in a challenge trial."
date: "2021-08-27"
modified: "2021-08-27"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/infect-humans-home-grown-covid-strain"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "challenge study"
  - "coronavirus"
  - "covid19"
  - "health"
---

# Researchers Are About to Infect Humans With Home-Grown COVID Strain

![the laboratory services company hVivo has now grown enough of the delta variant of the coronavirus to start infecting human volunteers in a challenge trial.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Delta-Strain.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty / Futurism\</em\>*

UK researchers and officials are preparing to infect human volunteers with the delta variant of the coronavirus — on purpose — in a controversial but important "challenge" study that will help them directly measure the impact of vaccines and treatments.

Researchers in the UK [have already exposed](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/researchers-infect-people-covid>) about 40 human volunteers to the original variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, so that they can test vaccines and treatments in a head-to-head, controlled setting. But now that the delta variant has infected its way to international prominence, the researchers find themselves struggling to respond in kind.

To collect that invaluable data, *[The Wall Street Journal ](<https://www.wsj.com/articles/researchers-ready-lab-grown-covid-19-delta-variant-for-human-trials-11630053797>)*[reports](<https://www.wsj.com/articles/researchers-ready-lab-grown-covid-19-delta-variant-for-human-trials-11630053797>) that scientists at laboratory service company hVivo are almost finished cooking up a batch of the delta variant cultivated specifically for human experimentation.

"Delta has reduced the relevance of the first virus," respiratory-viral infection expert Garth Rapeport, who helped set up the human experiments, told the *WSJ*.

Ironically, the delta variant that's rapidly surged around the world and caused a horrific new wave of infections in the US is having a hard time growing in the lab.

"Delta has been more difficult," hVivo chief scientific officer Andrew Catchpole told the *WSJ*. "Not all clinical samples grow as readily in cell cultures."

Part of that challenge is the fact that the researchers have to ensure that any mutations in their lab-grown samples are a perfect mirror of the variant that's spreading through the outside world.

"It’s not that dissimilar to making vaccines," Rapeport told the *WSJ*. "It has to be highly controlled and regulated."

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)