--- title: "Researchers Are Starting to Infect People With COVID on Purpose" description: "UK researchers are preparing for a controversial experiment involving injecting healthy human test subjects with the coronavirus." date: "2020-10-20" modified: "2020-10-20" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/researchers-infect-people-covid" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "Pathogens" - "Viruses" tags: - "coronavirus" - "covid19" - "imperial college of london" - "vaccine" --- # Researchers Are Starting to Infect People With COVID on Purpose ![UK researchers are preparing for a controversial experiment involving injecting healthy human test subjects with the coronavirus.]() *\Image: Pixabay\* UK researchers are preparing for a controversial experiment in which they will inject healthy human test subjects with the coronavirus — risky research that they say could speed up vaccine development, [*NPR* reports](). The trial will be carried out by researchers at Imperial College London. The initial phase is aimed at finding the minimum amount of the virus necessary to cause COVID-19, which could help figure out whether severity of COVID-19 is linked to higher viral doses. The researchers will then try to study how the different vaccines work side-by-side to stop or prevent COVID-19. Other teams are preparing to infect subjects deliberately. The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is currently working on two strains at a lab in Colorado, [*Nature* reports](), though it's still waiting for final outcomes from phase 3 vaccine trials before going ahead. Researchers in Belgium are at work on a similar initiative, according to *NPR.* The advantage of infecting volunteers on purpose is that researchers don't have to wait for them to catch the disease by chance. But that also makes the technique controversial. "Deliberately infecting volunteers with a known human pathogen is never undertaken lightly," Peter Openshaw, co-investigator on the study at Impercial College London, said in [a statement](). "However, such studies are enormously informative about a disease, even one so well studied as COVID-19." The test is set to begin early next year, pending final regulatory approval. No specific treatment or vaccine to be tested as part of the experiment has been announced yet. ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()