Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine ready for human trials after proving effective in monkeys

Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine is showing signs of offering protection in a single dose.

The company has been testing several vaccine contenders on monkeys, and discovered its most effective vaccine produce an immune response and appeared safe in all of them, according to a study published Thursday in the scientific journal Nature. The company will now test the vaccine on humans to determine if it's safe and effective for widespread use.

Johnson & Johnson tested what turned out to be its most viable vaccine on six monkeys, and all of them remained completely safe from lung disease when exposed to the virus. Five of the six remained entirely safe from coronavirus infection when exposed as well. "This gives us confidence that we can test a single-shot vaccine in this epidemic and learn whether it has a protective effect in humans,” Johnson & Johnson's chief scientific officer Dr. Paul Stoffels told Reuters.

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This is the second vaccine proven to be effective in monkeys, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, noted to The New York Times. But "we can't take shortcuts" and rush into large-scale human trials just because of these results, she cautioned. More than 30 potential COVID-19 vaccines are now undergoing human trials worldwide, though Johnson & Johnson's is one of the few that may only require a single dose and not a follow-up booster shot.