A vaccine candidate dubbed “future-proof” may one day be able to protect against all future variants of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19.
This is the tantalizing promise of an international team of researchers led from the University of Cambridge, England and spin-off firm DIOSynVax.
Studies undertaken in guinea pigs, mice and rabbits found an experimental vaccine provided a strong immune response against all known variants of SARS-CoV-2 as well as a range of other coronaviruses, including those responsible for the 2002 SARS epidemic.
The candidate vaccine is based around a single, digitally designed and immune optimized antigen — a substance that induces the immune system to produce antibodies in response.
It has such broad effects against coronavirus strains because it is specifically designed to target the parts of the viruses that are required for replication, rather than the changing spike proteins Covid uses to attack cells.
Based on the present study, the team believe that a single vaccine with a combination of similar antigens could protect against a broad range of current and future coronaviruses.
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The study was undertaken by comparative pathologist Professor Jonathan Heeney of the University of Cambridge and his colleagues.
Heeney said: “In nature, there are lots of these viruses just waiting for an accident to happen.
“We wanted to come up with a vaccine that wouldn’t only protect against SARS-CoV-2, but all its relatives.”
Currently available vaccines — against Covid and other viruses like seasonal influenza — are based on specific virus isolates or variants that have arisen at some point in the past.
Heeney added: “However, viruses are mutating and changing all the time… it’s possible that a new variant will have arisen by the time we get to the point that the vaccine is manufactured, tested, and can be used by people.”
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According to the researchers, the optimized antigen is compatible with all current vaccine delivery systems — with the team demonstrating its successful use on animals via a DNA immunogen, a weakened version of a virus, and as an mRNA vaccine.
Based on the fact that the virus has a strong safety profile, the vaccine candidate has now moved to its first human clinical trials at medical facilities in both Cambridge and Southampton.
Heeney concluded: “Unlike current vaccines that use wild-type viruses that have caused trouble in the past, this technology combines lessons learned from nature’s mistakes and aims to protect us from the future.
“These optimized synthetic antigens generate broad immune responses, targeted to the key sites of the virus that can’t change easily.
“It opens the door for vaccines against viruses that we don’t yet know about. This is an exceptionally different vaccine technology — it’s a real turning point.”
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
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