Rutgers Students Wanted For Johnson & Johnson's Vaccine Trial

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Many may not know this, but Rutgers is a clinical trial site for Johnson & Johnson’s phase three of its COVID vaccine trial — and Rutgers is looking for student candidates for the third and final phase of the trial.

Rutgers will enroll as many as 2,000 participants from the University community and throughout New Jersey, the school announced Tuesday.

Trial participants will be paid, but Rutgers did not say how much. The school would only say that each trial participant would get a stipend per visit.

Study participants who meet the eligibility requirements will be randomly selected to receive a single dose of the potential vaccine or a placebo. Researchers will track whether those who are vaccinated have lower rates of infection with moderate to severe symptoms than those who were unvaccinated.

This is actually the second COVID vaccine trial to take place on the Rutgers campus: Moderna chose Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and University Hospital Newark as two of over 90 sites across the United States to recruit adults for their vaccine trial, known as the COVE Study.

The Moderna trial will enroll approximately 30,000 participants nationwide.

“Rutgers is committed to fighting the greatest public health challenge of this century,” said Jeffrey Carson, co-lead investigator and a provost at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. He is also a professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “Our research team will enroll a large number of volunteers into this extremely important vaccine trial. We will be offering participation to people who have enrolled in our prior COVID-19 studies with healthcare workers and Rutgers faculty, staff and alumni. We have no doubt that the Rutgers University community will rise to the challenge.”

People interested in volunteering to be considered for the vaccine clinical trial and other COVID-related research can click here or email or rutgers-covid-trials@rwjms.rutgers.edu.