NIAID issues new awards to fund pan-coronavirus vaccines – National Institutes of Health

News Release

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded approximately $36.3 million to three academic institutions to conduct research to develop vaccines to protect against multiple types of coronaviruses and viral variants. The awards are intended to fuel vaccine research for a diverse family of coronaviruses, with a primary focus on potential pandemic-causing coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-2.

The available COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be remarkably effective at protecting against severe disease and death, said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. These new awards are designed to look ahead and prepare for the next generation of coronaviruses with pandemic potential.

The new awards are funded by NIAIDs Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and its Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation through the Emergency Awards Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) on Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development Program Projects. The notice was issued in November 2020 while many SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were still under development because a critical need remained for prophylactic vaccines offering broad protective immunity against other coronaviruses, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV).

The awards are designed to fund multidisciplinary teams at each institution to conduct research focused on incorporating understanding of coronavirus virology and immunology, immunogen design, and innovative vaccine and adjuvant platforms and technologies to discover, design, and develop pan-coronavirus vaccine candidates that provide broad protective immunity to multiple coronavirus strains. Specific programs will address coronavirus diversity and infectious potential in humans, include innovative immunogen design and vaccine platforms, and approaches to elicit potent and durable pan-coronavirus immunity, and evaluate vaccine candidates in preclinical models. The awardees are expected to be flexible in the response to emerging knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 immune responses and infection and factor in new information as vaccines candidates are developed. Additional awards are expected to be issued under the NOSI in 2022 to support pan-coronavirus vaccine research at more institutions.

The new awards build on the $1.2 billion investment NIAID has made in coronavirus vaccine research since the COVID-19 pandemic began, including multiple projects in pan-coronavirus vaccine research in the NIAID intramural and extramural programs.

A key goal of the initiative is to develop multivalent vaccine platforms and strategies suitable for use in vulnerable populations and to understand vaccine-induced responses and efficacy related to a persons age or sex.

The following awards have been issued:

University of Wisconsin, MadisonProject Title: PanCorVac (Center for Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development)Grant: 1 P01AI165077-01

Brigham and Womens Hospital, Bostonroject Title: Discovering Durable Pan-Coronavirus ImmunityGrant: 1 P01AI165072-01

Duke University, Durham, North CarolinaProject Title: Design and Development of a Pan-Betacoronavirus VaccineGrant: 1 P01AI158571-01A1

More information on these awards is available at reporter.nih.gov.

NIAID conducts and supports research at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

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NIAID issues new awards to fund pan-coronavirus vaccines - National Institutes of Health