{"id":11808,"date":"2024-05-14T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=11808"},"modified":"2024-05-17T05:17:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T05:17:05","slug":"our-new-vaccine-could-protect-against-coronaviruses-that-havent-even-emerged-yet-new-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/our-new-vaccine-could-protect-against-coronaviruses-that-havent-even-emerged-yet-new-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Our new vaccine could protect against coronaviruses that haven\u2019t even emerged yet \u2013 new study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\"><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"theconversation-article-body\">\n    <figure>\n      <img  decoding=\"async\"  src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABAQMAAAAl21bKAAAAA1BMVEUAAP+KeNJXAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAAAlwSFlzAAAOxAAADsQBlSsOGwAAAApJREFUCNdjYAAAAAIAAeIhvDMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"  class=\" pk-lazyload\"  data-pk-sizes=\"auto\"  data-pk-src=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/592480\/original\/file-20240506-26-ljcebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&#038;rect=0%2C6%2C4089%2C2281&#038;q=45&#038;auto=format&#038;w=754&#038;fit=clip\" >\n        <figcaption>\n          \n          <span class=\"attribution\"><a class=\"source\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-photo\/vaccine-vial-dose-flu-shot-drug-1046242816\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Numstocker\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n        <\/figcaption>\n    <\/figure>\n\n  <span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/rory-hills-1531428\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rory Hills<\/a>, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-oxford-1260\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Oxford<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n  <p>The rapid development of vaccines that protect against COVID was a remarkable scientific achievement that saved <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC9537923\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">millions of lives<\/a>. The vaccines have demonstrated substantial success in reducing death and serious illness after COVID infection. <\/p>\n\n<p>Despite this success, the effects of the pandemic have been devastating, and it is critical to consider how to protect against future pandemic threats. As well as SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID), previously unknown coronaviruses have been responsible for the deadly outbreaks of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/health-topics\/severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome#tab=tab_1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SARS<\/a> (2003) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/health-topics\/middle-east-respiratory-syndrome-coronavirus-mers#tab=tab_1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MERS<\/a> (2012 outbreak with ongoing cases). Meanwhile, several circulating bat coronaviruses <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nm.3985\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">have been identified<\/a> as having the potential to infect humans \u2013 which could cause future outbreaks. <\/p>\n\n<p>My colleagues and I have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41565-024-01655-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently shown<\/a>, in mice, that a single, relatively simple vaccine can protect against a range of coronaviruses \u2013 even ones that are yet to be identified. This is a step towards our goal of what is known as \u201cproactive vaccinology\u201d, where vaccines are developed against pandemic threats before they can infect humans.<\/p>\n\n<figure>\n            <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UCQl4dBttOg?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n            <figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Interview with the author, Rory Hills.<\/span><\/figcaption>\n          <\/figure>\n\n<p>Conventional vaccines use a single antigen (part of a virus that triggers an immune response) that typically protects against that virus and that virus alone. They tend not to protect against diverse known viruses, or viruses that have not yet been discovered. <\/p>\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.abf6840\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">previous research<\/a>, we have shown the success of \u201cmosaic nanoparticles\u201d at raising immune responses to different coronaviruses. These mosaic nanoparticles use a type of protein superglue technology that irreversibly links two different proteins together. <\/p>\n\n<p>This \u201csuperglue\u201d is used to decorate a single nanoparticle with multiple receptor-binding domains \u2013  a key part of a virus located on the spike protein \u2013 that come from different viruses. The vaccine is focused on a sub-group of coronaviruses called sarbecoviruses that includes the viruses that cause COVID, SARS and several bat viruses that have the potential to infect humans. <\/p>\n\n<p>As a virus evolves, some parts of it change while other parts remain the same. Our vaccine incorporates evolutionarily related receptor-binding domains (RBDs), so a single vaccine trains the immune system to respond to the parts of the virus that remain unchanged. This protects against the viruses that are represented in the vaccine and, critically, also protects against related viruses that are not included in the vaccine. <\/p>\n\n<p>Despite this success with mosaic nanoparticles, the vaccine was complex, making it difficult to produce on a large scale.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"simpler-vaccine\">Simpler vaccine<\/h2>\n\n<p>In a collaboration between the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Caltech, we have now developed a simpler vaccine that still provides this broad protection. We achieved this by genetically fusing RBDs from four different sarbecoviruses to form a single protein that we call a \u201cquartet\u201d. We then use a type of protein glue to attach these quartets to a \u201cprotein nanocage\u201d to make the vaccine.<\/p>\n\n<p>When mice were immunised with these nanocage vaccines, they produced antibodies that neutralised a range of sarbecoviruses, including sarbecoviruses not present in the vaccine. This show the potential to protect against related viruses that may not have been discovered at the time that the vaccine was produced.<\/p>\n\n<p>Along with this streamlined production and assembly process, our new vaccine elicited immune responses in mice that at least matched, and in many cases exceeded, those raised by our original mosaic nanoparticles vaccine. <\/p>\n\n<p>Given the large fraction of the world vaccinated or previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, there was a worry that an existing response to SARS-CoV-2 would limit the potential to protect against other coronaviruses. However, we have shown that our vaccine is able to raise a broad anti-sarbecovirus immune response even in mice that had previously been immunised against SARS-CoV-2.<\/p>\n\n<p>Our next step is to test this vaccine in humans. We are also applying this technology to protect against other groups of viruses that can infect humans. All of this brings us closer to our vision of developing a library of vaccines against viruses with pandemic potential before they have had the opportunity to cross over into humans.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img  loading=\"lazy\"  decoding=\"async\"  src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABAQMAAAAl21bKAAAAA1BMVEUAAP+KeNJXAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAAAlwSFlzAAAOxAAADsQBlSsOGwAAAApJREFUCNdjYAAAAAIAAeIhvDMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"  alt=\"The Conversation\"  width=\"1\"  height=\"1\"  style=\"border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important\"  referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"  class=\" pk-lazyload\"  data-pk-sizes=\"auto\"  data-pk-src=\"https:\/\/counter.theconversation.com\/content\/229165\/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic\" ><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https:\/\/theconversation.com\/republishing-guidelines --><\/p>\n\n  <p><span><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/rory-hills-1531428\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rory Hills<\/a>, PhD Candidate, Biochemistry, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-oxford-1260\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Oxford<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n  <p>This article is republished from <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/our-new-vaccine-could-protect-against-coronaviruses-that-havent-even-emerged-yet-new-study-229165\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Numstocker\/Shutterstock Rory Hills, University of Oxford The rapid development of vaccines that protect against COVID was a remarkable&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":817,"featured_media":11886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/uc?id=1rN8R3vbFVQCCDobIOdiIXj-ltlxtzK2U","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[313,474,378],"class_list":{"0":"post-11808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-and-body","8":"category-math-and-the-sciences","9":"tag-chemistry","10":"tag-the-conversation","11":"tag-vaccine","12":"cs-entry","13":"cs-video-wrap"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11885,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11808\/revisions\/11885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}