An Ebola vaccine candidate that has been undergoing human trials in the lab now will be used in trial on people in a real world environment with assistance from the Ames-based biopharmaceutical company NewLink Genetics Corporation.

On Thursday, the company announced that with its collaboration with pharmaceutical company Merck, a vaccine for the virus, which has reached epidemic status in parts of Africa and popped up in other parts of the world, will soon begin clinical trials in Liberia.

The control group will be comprised of 27,000 patients and there are plans to do trials in other countries.

We are cautiously optimistic that the trials will lead to data that says the vaccine works, said Charles Link, CEO of NewLink Genetics.

There is no timeline for results, and Link said the trials will take several months.

The company will also receive $20 million in connection with the achievement. The company received $30 million when it first reached a license agreement with Merk in 2014.

Merck obtained an exclusive license to research, develop, manufacture and distribute the Ebola vaccine candidate as well as any follow-on products

Other partners in this collaboration project include the government of Canada, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Defense and the World Health Organization.

NewLink, which is located in the Iowa State University Research Park, began work with an Ebola vaccine in 2010 when it acquired the vaccine candidate from Public Health Agency of Canada, which developed it.

At that point, it was for animal experiments and not for humans, Link said. The laboratory work and research to get to the current point was accelerated because of the outbreak in West Africa.

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Ames company aids in Ebola vaccine candidate