Analysis of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine-induced Mouth Ulcers Using the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report Database.

There are case reports of mouth ulcers caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine; however, the actual number and characteristics of cases are unknown. Therefore, we examined this issue using the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report (JADER), a large Japanese database. We calculated the reported odds ratio (ROR) of drugs that may be specifically associated with mouth ulcers and assumed that a signal was present if the lower limit of the calculated ROR's 95% confidence interval (CI) was > 1. In addition, the time to symptom onset after administration of the COVID-19 mRNA and influenza HA vaccines was investigated. We found that the JADER database contained 4,661 mouth ulcer cases between April 2004 and March 2022. The COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was the eighth most common causative drug for mouth ulcers, with 204 reported cases. The ROR was 1.6 (95% CI, 1.4-1.9) and a signal was detected. There were 172 mouthulcer cases associated with the Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, 76.2% of which were female. The outcome was no unrecovered cases with the influenza HA vaccine, whereas the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine showed unrecovered cases (Pfizer-BioNTech: 12.2%, Moderna: 11.1%). The median time-to-onset of the mouth ulcers was two days for the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and one day for the influenza HA vaccine, indicating that mouth ulcers caused by the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine were delayed adverse events. In this study, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was shown to cause mouth ulcers in a Japanese population.

Industry-Academia Research Collaborations in the Post-corona Era: A Case Study of Remote Operations in a Japanese State-of-the-Art Research Facility

Recently, research facilities in academia take on a crucial role in the innovation ecosystem where facilities are promoting research collaborations through shared use with other research organizations, academia, and firms. We focus on the remote operation of measurement methods and speed-up technologies as a countermeasure against COVID-19 setback, whereby face-to-face contact and interactions are restricted, thus making it impractical for users to visit and use research facilities. We discuss how these new technologies and methodologies promote and obstruct industry-academia research collaborations during the post-corona period. Specifically, the focus is on NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Device), a state-of-the-art research facility that promotes shared use to external users in Japanese academic research institutes. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.