Need some extra cash? Researchers are looking for study participants for an upcoming study.
Participants can get paid $3,500 to stay at a St. Louis hotel for up to 12 days with catered meals, as long as they sign up to be exposed to the flu virus.
A St. Louis University research team is testing the effectiveness of flu vaccines by paying volunteers to stay at a hotel. Participants will be given a flu shot or a placebo, and then receive a dose of a flu virus through a nasal spray.
The volunteers will then be observed for flu symptoms, such as fever, runny nose, sneezing or coughing. The Extended Stay Research Unit will repeatedly test participants’ blood and mucus for signs of the virus.
The university spent about $350,000 to convert 24 hotel rooms at the Salus Center, formerly Water Tower Inn, into a quarantined medical unit, equipped with reading areas and game tables for socializing.
The “human challenge” unit is one of only a few across the world that is designed to test vaccines or treatments on people after exposing them to a disease.
Dr. Daniel Hoft, director of the university’s Center for Vaccine Development, said “you can learn a lot more, a lot faster” about whether vaccines work to prevent infection by controlling the study environment.
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