Scientists have created a vaccine that can protect humanity from many types of coronaviruses, including those that have yet to be discovered.
The Guardian reports that the details of the work, which resulted from a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and the California Institute of Technology, were published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The experimental vaccine was tested on mice. The researchers say this is the beginning of a movement toward proactive vaccinology when vaccines are developed and created before a virus that could potentially cause a pandemic emerges.
The vaccine is made by attaching harmless proteins from different coronaviruses to tiny nanoparticles, which are then injected into the body to prepare it to fight the viruses if they ever invade it. Because the vaccine trains the immune system to attack proteins common to many different types of coronavirus, the protection is effective against a wide range of known and unknown viruses in the same family.
“We’ve shown that a relatively simple vaccine can counteract various viruses. This brings us closer to the goal of developing vaccines before a pandemic starts,” said Rory Hills, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and one of the study’s authors.
Tests in mice have shown that the vaccine induces a broad immune response to coronaviruses, including the SARS-CoV-1 virus, which caused an outbreak of SARS in 2003. Moreover, SARS-CoV-1 virus proteins were not added to the vaccine nanoparticles.
According to Rory Hills, this coronavirus vaccine can be produced in existing microbial fermentation facilities. Researchers are working with companies to scale up vaccine production. Nanoparticles and viral proteins can be made at different times in different places and then mixed to create a vaccine.
Currently, medical regulators do not have procedures for proactive vaccinology. Hence, the researchers emphasize that this needs to be developed in the future. If the vaccine proves safe and effective in humans, it could be used as a booster against COVID-19 with additional protection against other coronaviruses.
The study authors assume that countries will stockpile this vaccine and other vaccines designed to combat individual pathogens once they are approved. Therefore, if the virus spreads to other countries, they will already have stocks of vaccines and a clear plan to ramp up production quickly if necessary. This should prevent global pandemics.
The study’s senior author, Professor Mark Howarth, emphasized that developing this vaccine is a huge job. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the world experienced a large-scale crisis with a vast number of deaths, so researchers must work now and start creating vaccines against viruses in advance to avoid a similar scenario in the future.
