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This nanoparticle could be the key to a universal covid vaccine
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/09/05/1058933/universal-covid-vaccine-research/This nanoparticle could be the key to a universal covid vaccine
Ending the covid pandemic might well require a vaccine that protects against any new strains. Researchers may have found a strategy that will work.
by Adam Piore
September 5, 2022
Long before Alexander Cohen—or anyone else—had heard of the alpha, delta, or omicron variants of covid-19, he and his graduate school advisor Pamela Bjorkman were doing the research that might soon make it possible for a single vaccine to defeat the rapidly evolving virus—along with any other covid-19 variant that might arise in the future.
Before the pandemic, Cohen had been a PhD student in Bjorkman’s structural biology lab at the California Institute of Technology, attempting to engineer a new kind of “universal” flu vaccine. It was designed to train the body's immune system to recognize portions of the influenza virus that the pathogen wouldn’t be able to change or disguise even as it evolved.
So in early 2020, when covid-19 hit and he was soon to receive his degree, Cohen, Bjorkman, and other members of the lab set to engineering a universal covid vaccine—one that would provide protection not just against all its variants, but also against future illnesses caused by entirely new types of coronaviruses.
“We’re definitely going to need something like this to fight covid-19 as new variants emerge,” Cohen says. “But beyond that, the potential for new global outbreaks and pandemics caused by other coronaviruses is clear. We need something that can prevent new covid-19-like scenarios from happening again. And we need it as soon as possible.”
[...]
Ending the covid pandemic might well require a vaccine that protects against any new strains. Researchers may have found a strategy that will work.
by Adam Piore
September 5, 2022
Long before Alexander Cohen—or anyone else—had heard of the alpha, delta, or omicron variants of covid-19, he and his graduate school advisor Pamela Bjorkman were doing the research that might soon make it possible for a single vaccine to defeat the rapidly evolving virus—along with any other covid-19 variant that might arise in the future.
Before the pandemic, Cohen had been a PhD student in Bjorkman’s structural biology lab at the California Institute of Technology, attempting to engineer a new kind of “universal” flu vaccine. It was designed to train the body's immune system to recognize portions of the influenza virus that the pathogen wouldn’t be able to change or disguise even as it evolved.
So in early 2020, when covid-19 hit and he was soon to receive his degree, Cohen, Bjorkman, and other members of the lab set to engineering a universal covid vaccine—one that would provide protection not just against all its variants, but also against future illnesses caused by entirely new types of coronaviruses.
“We’re definitely going to need something like this to fight covid-19 as new variants emerge,” Cohen says. “But beyond that, the potential for new global outbreaks and pandemics caused by other coronaviruses is clear. We need something that can prevent new covid-19-like scenarios from happening again. And we need it as soon as possible.”
[...]