Persephone is Committed to Diversity Inclusion with COVID Study
San Diego-based Persephone Biosciences Inc., a microbiome-focused biotechnology company, recently announced the initiation of the VOICES clinical study to determine the impact of gut microbiome composition and function on the immune system and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination. VOICES or Vaccine Observation to Include all Communities for Equitable Science is a single-site national study that will enroll up to 10,000 people being administered a COVID-19 vaccine. The study is vaccine-agnostic, meaning any vaccine currently or eventually authorized for emergency or other use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration during the course of the VOICES study will be included.
The study will collect samples prior to and after subjects are vaccinated for the SARS CoV-2 virus, with the goal of identifying and determining specific gut microbiota and the metabolic processes that are involved in optimal immune response and function.
Persephone Biosciences is committed to diversity inclusion within the study, with a goal of balanced gender enrollment as well as 50 percent ethnic and racial minorities, as those populations have been disproportionately adversely impacted by COVID-19. The study will begin with an initial pilot study of a few hundred adults and scale to more than 10,000 participants nationwide.
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