Hepatitis C is a disease that slowly damages the liver. After decades, it can cause liver cancer or even liver failure, leading to death. The good news: it’s fully treatable. The bad news: treatment is not easily available for the world’s poorest, and there’s no vaccine — even though it kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.
It’s likely that in 2026, a study involving controlled infection with hepatitis C for up to a few months will begin. Volunteers would be fully treated for free at the end of the study (or earlier, if they wish). Like all medical studies, regulatory and ethics board approval will be required before anyone is enrolled.
That may sound strange — but similar studies, called “human challenge studies,” have been done for other diseases, too. With careful oversight and regulation, many experts in hepatitis C, research ethics, and related areas believe that human challenge studies can be done safely for hepatitis C, too. 121 people, including two scientists who won the Nobel Prize for discovering hepatitis C, published a letter in support of hep C human challenge studies in September 2023.
Research participation is compensated.
1Day Sooner is a non-profit organization that provides shared infrastructure for world’s most impactful study and for those who want to participate in them. Many members of our staff have participated in clinical research studies as healthy participants.
If you’d like to consider volunteering some day, fill in the form below and we’ll reach out. Scroll down a bit further to see more information about this research and hepatitis C.
Who would volunteer to be infected with a disease?
Hundreds of studies involving dozens of diseases have involved deliberate infection of healthy, consenting adults — 15,000 people between 1980 and 2021, according to one study (and there were zero deaths)! Here are others who have volunteered in this kind of medical study, called a challenge study, for other diseases:
“I took the plunge and got infected with norovirus to help better understand the disease. To me, it was a relatively simple request: my health, temporarily, in return for scientific advancement.”
Thomas Smiley, Cincinnati, USA
Volunteer
Norovirus GII.4/CIN-3 characterization challenge, 2022
“Nobody wants to get sick (especially with infectious diseases like dysentery!) but I’m hopeful that by people like me volunteering for human challenge studies, medical advances can be made to help protect those most vulnerable.”
Mallory Admire, Baltimore, USA
Volunteer
Shigella flexneri 2a vaccine challenge, 2022
“The deep nasal swabs and my initial fear of needles were awful!! But was a small sacrifice to hopefully enable us to combat Covid-19 better.”
Paresh Patel, Oxford, UK
Volunteer
SARS-CoV-1 (Wuhan strain) reinfection challenge study, 2021 (Paresh was the study’s first participant!)
We put together an FAQ document about upcoming hepatitis C studies here. Here are the highlights:
- Hepatitis C is fully treatable, and treatment will be provided for free to all participants in the study.
- There’s no evidence short-term infection with hepatitis C causes serious long-term health consequences.
- Most people with hepatitis C usually don’t show symptoms. If they do occur, symptoms can include nausea, fatigue, headache, and jaundice (a painless yellow tinge to the skin).
- Hepatitis C challenge studies will take place over several months and include regular visits and blood draws, along with other procedures, to monitor your health.
- The studies would not involve overnight stays in any hospital or clinic.
We’re a public health nonprofit that supports for people who want to make a difference by joining high-impact medical studies. We don’t represent the studies ourselves, and we don’t run them — we’re independent advocates.