Aid in developing treatments by performing studies of natural disease progression in a controlled environment. They guarantee uniform exposure to speed up vaccine development by reducing ineffective candidates.

University of California, Santa Cruz

Vaccine development comes with a host of problems that slows down the progression of producing one. Aside from the economic and time-sensitive factors, vaccines come with alternative effects that need to be studied and approved by national organizations (FDA) for general use:
- Antibody-dependent-enhancement (ADE)
- Comorbidities 
- Challenge studies

Challenges to vaccine development

Schaefer, G., Tam, C. C., Savulescu, J., & Voo, T. C. (2020). Covid-19 Vaccine Development: Time to Consider Sars-Cov-2 Challenge Studies? SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3568981

COVID-19 vaccine development: Time to consider SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies?

Antibody-dependent enhancement occurs when the antibodies the viruses bind to on the host cell permit increased entry and replication of the virus. This process has been observed in: yellow fever, zika virus, and the novel coronavirus.
ADE affects vaccine development by being a possible unforeseen phenomenon that could cause the vaccine to worsen the patient's condition rather than providing an inflammatory response.

Challenge Studies

The term "cold chain" refers to the maintenance of consistent temperatures for refrigerated vaccines from manufacture through delivery to health care facilities.

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