The “Universal” COVID-19 vaccine is coming soon?
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The “Universal” COVID-19 vaccine is coming soon?
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The “Universal” COVID-19 vaccine is coming soon?
The website of the Spanish newspaper Le Monde recently published a report entitled “A universal vaccine to prevent all new coronavirus variants and future coronaviruses is getting closer to us”. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Pfizer and Moderna have already started clinical trials of specific vaccines against Omicron variants, but the new coronavirus is mutating so quickly that many scientists fear that another circulating strain has emerged by the time a vaccine is ready.
It is clear that the new coronavirus will continue to mutate, so researchers around the world are working to develop a universal vaccine for the new coronavirus, a “pan-coronavirus” vaccine that can not only fight the new coronavirus, but also all known human coronaviruses (including those that cause common four coronaviruses with cold symptoms).
The goal is ambitious and potentially decisive, as the huge advantage of such vaccines is that they prevent not only new variants of the new coronavirus, but also other new coronaviruses that may emerge as species jump. “This vaccine will take years to develop, and it will take years to develop a broad and long-lasting response to known and unknown coronaviruses,” said Anthony Fauci, immunologist, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and White House epidemic adviser. Prevention requires innovative methods.”
In general, vaccine development needs to focus on regions of the new coronavirus that are less prone to mutation and remain relatively stable across all coronaviruses.
Pamela Bjorkman, a structural biologist at the California Institute of Technology, is developing a universal vaccine against certain viruses similar to SARS.
The vaccine, which consists of multiple parts of the virus and has been tested in mice, stimulates antibody formation when it blocks infection caused by several SARS-like viruses, including strains not used to make the vaccine.
The researchers are confident that the mice’s immune systems have learned to recognize common features of the coronavirus, and testing in humans will begin soon.
The U.S. Army recently announced promising results for a vaccine candidate called spike protein-ferritin nanoparticles (SpFN) developed by researchers at the Walter Reed Army Research Institute.
Based on technology developed for the production of a universal flu vaccine, the SpFN vaccine consists of ferritin nanoparticles shaped like a soccer ball with 24 surfaces decorated with copies of various spike proteins of the original strain of SARS-CoV-2.
The immune system, when stimulated by the vaccine, produces neutralizing antibodies that are resistant to different virus variants and possible future variants, so scientists believe it may offer broader protection than current Covid-19 vaccines. “The presence of multiple spike proteins from the coronavirus in the faceted nanoparticles could stimulate immunity, resulting in broader protection,” Kayon Mojarad, a researcher on the project, said in a news release last December.
The results of the in vitro and preclinical animal tests (published in the American journal Science Translational Medicine) are fantastic. Ferritin platform-based nanoparticle formulations induce highly potent and broadly neutralizing infectious antibody responses against worrisome major variants of 2019-nCoV, as well as SARS virus that emerged in 2002, but have not yet been tested against Omicron variants test.
The first phase of the trial, which began in April 2021, enrolled 72 adults between the ages of 18 and 55, and the results were promising. Phase 2 and 3 trials with more participants are expected soon to confirm the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.
The trials of the SpFN vaccine were given in two doses 28 days apart, with a booster dose given 6 months later.
Unlike messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines, SpFN vaccines can be stored in the refrigerator at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for 6 months.
The “Universal” COVID-19 vaccine is coming soon?
(source:internet, reference only)
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