COVID-19 Vaccine: New All-In-One Vaccine Could Be Effective Against All Coronavirus Variants – Times Now

Updated May 7, 2024, 09:27 IST

Vaccine is made by attaching harmless proteins from different variants of coronavirus to very small nanoparticles

A team of scientists from leading universities in the world have developed a new all-in-one vaccine that they say can protect humans against all variants of coronaviruses. Including the ones that are yet to emerge.

The study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology is based on a new approach to the development of vaccines known as proactive vaccinology where vaccines are made even before the disease-causing pathogen emerges. Scientists say this has shown promising results in mouse models. The study, conducted jointly by the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Caltech says the vaccines work by making your body's immune system know about specific regions of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID-19 outbreak.

This research has come more than two months after a JAMA Network study found that immunity against the omicron variant fades rapidly after a second and third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine. A study also found that booster shots did not stop coronavirus spike proteins from binding to cells as well in omicron cases as they did with other strains.

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Scientists say the vaccine is made by attaching harmless proteins from different variants of coronavirus to very small nanoparticles that are then injected to prime your bodys defences to fight the viruses that may invade in the future.

And since the vaccine trains the immune system to target proteins shared across many different types of coronaviruses, the protection it induces is extremely broad, making it effective against known and unknown viruses in the same family. According to scientists, many variants of the virus are currently circulating in bats and have the potential to jump to humans and cause a pandemic.

Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic and have it ready before the pandemic has even started, Rory Hills, a graduate researcher in the University of Cambridges Department of Pharmacology and first author of the report, told the media.

If the vaccine is found to be safe and effective in humans, it could be used as a COVID-19 booster with the added benefit of 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. If 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 added.

Scientists say the key to the effectiveness of the virus is that the specific virus regions the vaccine targets also appear in many related coronaviruses. Training the immune system to attack these regions, gives protection against other coronaviruses not represented in the vaccine, including ones that have not even been identified yet.

Scientists say this new vaccine is much simpler in design than others that are presently in development, which could make it go for clinical trials faster than the others.

Experts say conventional vaccines include a single antigen to train the immune system to target a single specific virus, which may not protect against a diverse range of existing coronaviruses or against pathogens that are newly emerging.

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COVID-19 Vaccine: New All-In-One Vaccine Could Be Effective Against All Coronavirus Variants - Times Now