China's Wuhan lab develops universal nasal vaccine against 'future pandemics'
The vaccine has shown effectiveness against multiple variants, including Delta, Omicron, and the WIV04 strain.
The world is still recovering from the damage caused by the coronavirus, including the loss of life, capital, and economic stability. Is there any chance of a new mutation of similar severity leading to future pandemics? Well, we don’t have an answer to that. But what if we told you that we could be immune to every possible mutation of the coronavirus? Sounds like good news, doesn’t it? A researcher at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was blamed for the COVID-19 leak, has created a new nano vaccine capable of fighting all major variants and mutations of the coronavirus, potentially protecting us from future pandemics.
The South China Morning Post reported that the team who created the vaccine at the Wuhan lab claimed that although the current vaccines are proving effective in preventing Sars-CoV-2 infection and reducing mortality rates, they fall short of providing comprehensive protection against all virus variants.
The new intranasal nanoparticle vaccine combines coronavirus epitopes—specific antigen components that activate the immune system—with the blood protein ferritin to counter the virus. Reportedly the vaccine has shown effectiveness against multiple variants, including Delta, Omicron, and the WIV04 strain, an early variant identified in Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic in 2020.
“The ongoing and future pandemics caused by Sars-CoV-2 variants and mutations underscore the need for effective vaccines that provide broad-spectrum protection,” the researchers wrote in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal ACS Nano in June. “Our constructed nano vaccine targeting the conserved epitopes of the pre-existing neutralising antibodies can serve as a promising candidate for a universal Sars-CoV-2 vaccine.”
Researchers have previously warned that further mutations of the coronavirus can produce new strains, resulting in another global pandemic.
The developing process and pretrials
“The nano vaccine was developed by merging epitopes—short peptides with conserved sequences in the S2 region of the coronavirus—with ferritin derived from Helicobacter pylori. This ferritin is expressed in Escherichia coli cells, where it self-assembles into nanoparticles. These nanoparticles are then isolated and concentrated from the bacterial cells to create a vaccine that can be administered intranasally, offering an alternative to traditional injections”, the South China Morning Post reported.
Mice were tested with the nano vaccine, followed by a couple of booster doses during the preclinical trials. The mice reflected elevated levels of Immunoglobulin G antibodies compared to controls. The levels remained on top of the scale for six direct months, after which they were exposed to various coronavirus variants, including Omicron and Delta, to which they showed enhanced resistance to virus-induced lung symptoms.
The Research team stated that the nanoparticle vaccine is capable of curing broad-spectrum coronavirus mutations.
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