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Scientists create vaccine with potential to protect against future coronaviruses

Edmond Dantès

Edmond Dantès

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Researchers say experimental shot is step towards goal of creating vaccines before a pandemic has started.
Scientists have created a vaccine that has the potential to protect against a broad range of coronaviruses, including varieties that are not yet even known about.

The experimental shot, which has been tested in mice, marks a change in strategy towards "proactive vaccinology", where vaccines are designed and readied for manufacture before a potentially pandemic virus emerges.

The vaccine is made by attaching harmless proteins from different coronaviruses to minuscule nanoparticles that are then injected to prime the body's defences to fight the viruses should they ever invade.

Because the vaccine trains the immune system to target proteins that are shared across many different types of coronavirus, the protection it induces is extremely broad, making it effective against known and unknown viruses in the same family.

"We've shown that a relatively simple vaccine can still provide a scattershot response across a range of different viruses," said Rory Hills, a graduate researcher at the University of Cambridge and first author of the report. "It takes us one step forward towards our goal of creating vaccines before a pandemic has even started."
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Tests in mice showed that the vaccine induced a broad immune response to coronaviruses, including Sars-Cov-1, the pathogen that caused the 2003 Sars outbreak, even though proteins from that virus were not added to the vaccine nanoparticles. Details of the work, a collaboration between the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and the California Institute of Technology, are published in Nature Nanotechnology.

The universal coronavirus vaccine can be made in existing facilities for microbial fermentation, Hills said, adding that the researchers were working with industrial partners on ways to scale up the process. The nanoparticles and viral proteins can be made at different times in different places and mixed together to produce the vaccine.

Medical regulators do not have procedures for proactive vaccinology and the researchers say these would have to be worked out with the relevant bodies. If the vaccine were found to be safe and effective in humans, one option would be to use it as a Covid booster with the added benefit of it protecting against other coronaviruses.

More likely is that countries would hold stocks of the vaccine, and others designed to target separate pathogens, once they have been manufactured and approved. "In the event that a coronavirus or other pathogen crosses over you could have pre-existing vaccine stocks ready and a clear plan to quickly scale up production if needed," Hills said.

Prof Mark Howarth, a senior author of the study, said: "Scientists did a great job in quickly producing an extremely effective Covid vaccine during the last pandemic, but the world still had a massive crisis with a huge number of deaths. We need to work out how we can do even better than that in the future, and a powerful component of that is starting to build the vaccines in advance."
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www.theguardian.com

Scientists create vaccine with potential to protect against future coronaviruses

Researchers say experimental shot is step towards goal of creating vaccines before a pandemic has started
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

Study:

www.nature.com

Proactive vaccination using multiviral Quartet Nanocages to elicit broad anti-coronavirus responses - Nature Nanotechnology

The ability to vaccinate against multiple related pathogens is a significant advantage. Here, the authors report on quartets of linked receptor-binding domains attached to designed nanocages using SpyTag/SpyCatcher links, demonstrating effective vaccination against similar viruses as well as the...
www.nature.com www.nature.com

Abstract:

Defending against future pandemics requires vaccine platforms that protect across a range of related pathogens. Nanoscale patterning can be used to address this issue. Here, we produce quartets of linked receptor-binding domains (RBDs) from a panel of SARS-like betacoronaviruses, coupled to a computationally designed nanocage through SpyTag/SpyCatcher links. These Quartet Nanocages, possessing a branched morphology, induce a high level of neutralizing antibodies against several different coronaviruses, including against viruses not represented in the vaccine. Equivalent antibody responses are raised to RBDs close to the nanocage or at the tips of the nanoparticle's branches. In animals primed with SARS-CoV-2 Spike, boost immunizations with Quartet Nanocages increase the strength and breadth of an otherwise narrow immune response. A Quartet Nanocage including the Omicron XBB.1.5 'Kraken' RBD induced antibodies with binding to a broad range of sarbecoviruses, as well as neutralizing activity against this variant of concern. Quartet nanocages are a nanomedicine approach with potential to confer heterotypic protection against emergent zoonotic pathogens and facilitate proactive pandemic protection.
 
fragamemnon

fragamemnon

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Nov 30, 2017
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Stockpiles of this vaccine would be super useful to have in the case of any future pandemic - you can get them to at-risk populations and health care workers quickly. These vaccines probably won't have the same efficacy as a vaccine dialed into a specific virus, but getting speedy distribution could save a lot of lives.

COVID-19 was savage on at-risk populations moving people from illness requiring hospitalization to just severe illness is a big deal for outcomes and could mitigate overload of hospital systems. If the hospital systems aren't overloaded, we don't have the crushing and brutal societal impacts from lockdowns.
 
John Harker

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Oct 27, 2017
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but would this help against variations and mutations of the current viruses its protective against? or are we doing that thing again where we help ourselves in the short term but making everything unknown and harder down the line?
 
Mochi

Mochi

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John Harker said:
but would this help against variations and mutations of the current viruses its protective against? or are we doing that thing again where we help ourselves in the short term but making everything unknown and harder down the line?
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Based on my limited understanding this vaccine would be given on a yearly basis similar to other vaccines. It looks like it's designed to cover a wider range of viruses and hopefully prevent the *initial* spread of a new coronavirus inter-species crossover. Its inhibitory function via targeting of the spike protein is basically the same as other modern Covid vaccines, but the technology they are using induces a more efficient immune response, if I am understanding the article correctly. The receptor binding domain has decently high rates of mutation and so I imagine this vaccine would have to be administered with similar frequency to others.
 
lunarworks

lunarworks

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fragamemnon said:
Stockpiles of this vaccine would be super useful to have in the case of any future pandemic - you can get them to at-risk populations and health care workers quickly. These vaccines probably won't have the same efficacy as a vaccine dialed into a specific virus, but getting speedy distribution could save a lot of lives.

COVID-19 was savage on at-risk populations moving people from illness requiring hospitalization to just severe illness is a big deal for outcomes and could mitigate overload of hospital systems. If the hospital systems aren't overloaded, we don't have the crushing and brutal societal impacts from lockdowns.
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Many strains of the common cold are coronavirus, so it would be effective to use like an annual flu shot.
 
fragamemnon

fragamemnon

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Nov 30, 2017
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PeakPointMatrix said:
Well if Republicans want to continue culling their entire senior population, please remain anti-vax.
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Better access to family medicine and a push for conversations by family doctors to patients would be a huge help here. The move to huge patient panels and really brief face time during appointments forces many FPs to triage their appointments - talking about vaccinations takes a backseat to evaluating current scripts, conversations around labs and weight, and heading off other chronic illnesses.

Low-key- another backdoor route for this is to hand out GLP-1 agonists like candy and get people happy to accept the recommendations of their FPs based ont hat experience (even if they don't like government) to rebuild trust after the disintegration of public trust in federal/state/local instituions during COVID-19. That would require a huge intervention by the government to facilitate, though.
 
Lobster Roll

Lobster Roll

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Sep 24, 2019
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As be as far forward in the line as I can reasonably be for this. I'll take all the science jabs.
 
Pomerlaw

Pomerlaw

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Feb 25, 2018
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Aren't we vaccinated people supposed to be dead by now according to the plandemic morons?
 
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