{"673880":{"#nid":"673880","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Researchers Develop More Broadly Protective Coronavirus Vaccine","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EScientists have been searching for the optimal coronavirus vaccine since the Covid-19 pandemic started. The mRNA vaccines developed through the federal government\u0027s \u0022Operation Warp Speed\u0022 program were a massive innovation; however, annually updating those boosters for specific SARS-CoV-2 variants is inefficient for scientists and patients. SARS-CoV-2 is just one member of the Sarbecovirus (\u003Cstrong\u003ESAR\u003C\/strong\u003ES \u003Cstrong\u003EBe\u003C\/strong\u003Eta\u003Cstrong\u003Eco\u003C\/strong\u003Erona\u003Cstrong\u003Evirus\u003C\/strong\u003E) subfamily (others\u0026nbsp; include SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2002 SARS outbreak, as well as other viruses circulating in bats that could cause future pandemics).\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new vaccine that offers broad protection against not only SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also other bat sarbecoviruses. The groundbreaking trivalent vaccine has shown complete protection with no trace of virus in the lungs, marking a significant step toward a universal vaccine for coronaviruses.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u201cWe had been working on strategies to make a broadly protective vaccine for a while,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/kaneresearchgroup\/\u0022\u003ERavi Kane\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003EGarry Betty\/V Foundation Chair\u0026nbsp;and GRA Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanotechnology and\u0026nbsp;\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003Eprofessor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.chbe.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cThis vaccine may protect not just against the current strain circulating that year, but also future variants.\u201d\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EThey presented their findings in \u201c\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC10350183\/\u0022\u003EBroad protection against clade 1\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC10350183\/\u0022\u003Esarbecoviruses after a single immunization with cocktail spike-protein-nanoparticle\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC10350183\/\u0022\u003Evaccine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E,\u201d published in the February edition of \u003Cem\u003ENature Communications\u003C\/em\u003E.\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EKane and his research group have been working on the technologies to develop more widely protective vaccines for viruses since he joined Georgia Tech in 2015. Although the team didn\u2019t specifically foresee Covid-19 arising when it did, pandemics have regularly occurred throughout human history. While the team pivoted their vaccine research to address coronaviruses, they were surprised by how rapidly each new variant arose, making their broader vaccine even more necessary.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EOnce they realized the challenge inherent in how fast SARS-CoV-2 mutates, they had two options for how to build a vaccine: design one to be widely preventative against the virus, or use the influenza vaccine, which updates annually for the anticipated prevalent variant, as a model. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EMaking a broad vaccine is more appealing because it enables patients to get one shot and be protected for years. To create their general vaccine, Kane\u2019s team capitalized on the key to the original mRNA vaccines \u2014 the spike protein, which binds the virus to healthy cells. Their vaccine uses three prominent spike proteins, or a trivalent vaccine, to elicit a broad enough antibody response to make the vaccine effective against SARS-CoV-2 variants as well as other sarbecoviruses that have been identified as having pandemic potential. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u201cIf you know which variant is circulating, you can immunize with the spike protein of that variant,\u201d Ph.D. student and co-author Kathryn Loeffler said. \u201cBut a broad vaccine is more difficult to develop because you\u2019re protecting against many different antigens versus just one.\u201d\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003ECollaborators in the Kawaoka group at the University of Wisconsin tested their vaccine in hamsters, which they had previously identified as an appropriate animal model to evaluate vaccines and immunotherapies against SARS-CoV-2. The vaccine was able to neutralize all SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants tested, as well as non-SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruses circulating in bats. Even better, the vaccine provided complete protection with no detectable virus in the lungs.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EKane hopes that the vaccine strategy his team identified can be applied to other viruses \u2014 other coronavirus subfamilies as well as other viruses such as influenza viruses. They also expect that some of the specific antigens they describe in this paper can be moved toward preclinical trials. Someday, a trivalent vaccine could comprise a routine part of people\u2019s medical treatment.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new vaccine that offers broad protection against not only SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also other bat sarbecoviruses. The groundbreaking trivalent vaccine has shown complete protection with no trace of virus in the lungs, marking a significant step toward a universal vaccine for coronaviruses.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new vaccine that offers broad protection against not only SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also other bat sarbecoviruses"}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2024-04-01 17:43:25","changed_gmt":"2024-04-09 21:30:08","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2024-04-01T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2024-04-01T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"603574":{"id":"603574","type":"image","title":"vaccine","body":null,"created":"1520613963","gmt_created":"2018-03-09 16:46:03","changed":"1520613963","gmt_changed":"2018-03-09 16:46:03","alt":"Patient getting a vaccine","file":{"fid":"230060","name":"9399_lores.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/9399_lores.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/9399_lores.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":36793,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/9399_lores.jpg?itok=JJb0FqbS"}}},"media_ids":["603574"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"138","name":"Biotechnology, Health, Bioengineering, Genetics"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Senior Research Writer\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003Etess.malone@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}