Framed ‘Artist impression of the first batch of Ad26NCOV030 (Ad26.COV2.S) produced on 04 May 2020 in L1.26 lab in Leiden, The Netherlands’, drawing by Joost Haasnoot, scientist who worked on the development of the Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, COVID-19 vaccine, dated 7 October 2021

Celebrating a milestone of the first batch of Janssen, Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, this drawing is by one of the hundreds of people who worked tirelessly to make it possible. Developing a vaccine requires the skills and knowledge of hundreds of people, working in multiple countries.

Drawing on decades long work, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, worked with Janssen Vaccines, a subsidiary company of Johnson and Johson, to rapidly identify possible candidates for a COVID-19 vaccine in January 2020. After much testing the AD26.COV2.S candidate went into small scale production in Leiden, Netherlands, for further testing and clinical trials. Within 13 months, their single dose vaccine was approved for emergency use in the United States for over 18s in February 2021. In total ,103 countries approved the use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, known by the brand name Jcovden.

The vaccine uses a deactivated human common cold virus, known as an adenovirus, to deliver the genetic code for the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), spike protein. This is a protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus which it needs to enter our cells. Later, if the person comes into contact with the COVID-19 virus, the person’s immune system will recognise the spike protein on the virus and be ready to defend the body against it. The adenoviruses are grown in the PER.C6 cell line, derived from human embryonic retinal cells. These cells are extracted and filtered out during the vaccine’s manufacture.