On March 25, 2024 the official launch of the new not-for-profit registered charity, the Doherty Clinical Trials Ltd. (DCT) was held.  DCT  is a subsidiary of the University of Melbourne, established by the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (PDIII, or the Doherty Institute) in connection with Burnet Institute. The board members have to be “approved” by PDIII council.

DCT’s purpose is to accelerate the “development pipeline for novel therapeutics and vaccines for key partners and industry clients…with a specific focus on clinical trials for infectious diseases, including human infection challenge studies“, particularly for “early-phase clinical development of antimicrobials and vaccines.” [1, 2, 3]

The “purpose-built facility is the first of its kind in the southern Hemisphere” (suggesting there is intent for more), and ran in partnership with a global team! The Wellcome Trust (2022) with representation from BMGF, The Lancet (2018) and WHO’s 2017 report on “Human challenge trials for vaccine development” were referenced by DCT to help justify this ethically challenging, novel (“bespoke”) research move!

Victoria, Australia is positioning itself as a “world-leader in health sciences”, with Moderna’s mRNA platform factory in it’s back yard and with DCT’s affiliation with the Australian Institute for Infectious Disease(AIID) it appears human voluntary “guinea pigs” will likely be experimental subjects of any new “infectious disease” mRNA genetic codes!

  • Doherty Clinical Trials is a BIO partner, and attended the BIO International Convention in Boston June 5 – 8, 2023, which was attended by tens of thousands of biotech focused individuals and organisations. [5]
  • DCT website launched June 6, 2023, starting to recruit volunteers which receive tax-free reimbursement.
  • The DCT project was brewing since at least November 2021, when pandemic vaccine products such as Moderna mRNA were still only under provisional use in Australia.
  • The Human Challenge Trials, in which healthy volunteers are experimentally infected, is justified as needed because of what the “COVID-19 pandemic has taught us“! as they “give critical real-time information which allows for rapid development of effective vaccines and treatments.” [4]
  • “The proposal to prepare WHO guidance on human challenge trials (HCT) was developed during a WHO Consultation on clinical evaluation of vaccines held in Geneva, Switzerland, 17–18 July 2014” [6]
  • WHO, “public health” and Pharma/NGO partners see HCT as a way to cut down cost and time for introducing new vaccines.

DCT’s first infectious disease human challenge trials “include influenza, Streptococcus pyogenes (Strep A), gonorrhoea and malaria,” the consequences of intentionally infecting healthy people has drawn the attention of ethically focused, concerned scientists.