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Oxford University researchers announced that they have developed a way to predict the effectiveness of new Covid-19 vaccines based on a blood test, which could provide a shortcut to large-scale clinical trials that are increasingly difficult to conduct.

Researchers analyzed the concentration of a group of antibodies in the blood of clinical trial participants after they received the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, now known as Vaxzevria.

By looking at which of these volunteers in the trial later developed symptoms of Covid-19 and which did not, the researchers created a model that they hope will predict how strong other vaccines will be, based on readings from those blood tests.

“The data can be used to extrapolate efficacy estimates of new vaccines where large efficacy trials cannot be conducted,” they said in the study, which was published online Thursday and submitted for peer review for future publication in the journal Scientific.

Oxford researchers have warned that more work is needed to validate their model for several new, highly contagious variants of the coronavirus.

They noted that they did not investigate the so-called cellular immune response, which is one of the human body’s main weapons against infection besides antibodies, but which is difficult to measure.