COVID 'subunit' vaccine shown to be effective in animal trials

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-04-20 10:34

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A COVID-19 vaccine that contains only a small part of the virus alongside an agent that stimulates the immune system, has been shown to provide protective immunity in non-human primates, paving the way for clinical trials. The vaccine, called a subunit vaccine,  uses only the very specific parts of a virus that the immune system needs to recognize, in this case, part of the spike protein. Subunit vaccines are among the safest and most widely used vaccines ever developed.  But these type of vaccines also require an immune response boosting agent, called an adjuvant, to be delivered at the same time. The researchers showed blood serum taken from immunised animals was able to neutralise the UK COVID-19 variant, but it was less effective against the South African variant.  The authors say developing a safe and effective subunit vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 would represent an important step in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.