US military reports progress on COVID vaccine that fights all variants | Health Info

“This vaccine stands out in the COVID-19 vaccine landscape,” Modjarrad said. “The repetitive and orderly display of the coronavirus spike protein on a multifaceted nanoparticle can boost immunity in a way that translates into much broader protection.”

The Army news follows an op-ed co-authored by Dr.Anthony Fauci in the New England Journal of Medicine calling for renewed research for a universal vaccine against the coronavirus. Over the past 20 years, the world has experienced four deadly coronavirus outbreaks, including two episodes of SARS in the early 2000s, the emergence of MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) in 2012 and now COVID-19, which killed more than 800,000 Americans. , argue the authors of the editorial.

The military vaccine follows a potential pathway to create such a vaccine by targeting multiple sites on cutting edge proteins from different variants of COVID-19, said lead editorial author Dr David Morens, senior scientific adviser to Fauci at the US National Allergy Institute. and infectious diseases.

A universal vaccine, however, might need to attack many different places in the COVID coronavirus beyond just the spike protein, what Morens called the “body parts of the virus.”

“You want to have an immune response to all parts of the body, not just one part of the body,” Morens said.

The most important targets would be those that are “conserved” – a scientific term referring to parts of the virus that stay the same throughout a series of mutations that affect other parts, explained Dr William Schaffner, medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious. Diseases.

“You are looking for what people might call a common denominator that is present in all viruses, and can we create an immune system that can seek out that common part and thus prevent a lot of infections,” Schaffner said.

Research on a universal vaccine could also involve multiple doses of an effective vaccine, or creating substances that trigger a stronger immune response to a vaccine, Morens added.

It’s difficult to create a vaccine, let alone a universal vaccine, to fight a respiratory virus like COVID or the flu, Schaffner noted.

“Ideally, what we would like to do is prevent them from gaining a foothold in the body. But when they enter the body, they enter the cells of the respiratory system and start their infection with the cells that are in them. mucous membranes of the nose and back in the throat, ”Schaffner said.

“This makes it difficult for the antibodies that are circulating in the bloodstream to get there right away. It’s almost as if the infection were to set in, and then when the virus tries to move around the body, it’s almost like the infection has to set in, and then when the virus tries to move around the body, it’s like is when the antibodies diffuse themselves, ”he explained.

Schaffner said it was encouraging that U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) bigwigs like Fauci and Morens wrote the NEJM editorial because it indicates a willingness to put government money where they say it is.

“I love that Tony himself is a part of this editorial, because I think it means that NIH funding will be available to stimulate this type of research in our labs here in the United States and around the world,” said Schaffner.

SOURCES: David Morens, MD, senior scientific adviser to Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; William Schaffner, MD, medical director, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases; US Army, press release, December 16, 2021

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