The COVID-19 vaccines could help stop the next pandemic in its tracks

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-05-11 11:00

International

Current vaccines used for the COVID-19 pandemic could provide a blueprint for protecting against the next coronavirus, according to a US study. Researchers vaccinated macaque monkeys with modified vaccines designed to protect against multiple different coronaviruses, and found the vaccines were able to produce cross-neutralising antibodies. The researchers believe mRNA vaccines can therefore provide some protection from future virus outbreaks, and can be built upon to create new vaccines to target viruses as they develop.

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Research Springer Nature, Web page

Journal/
conference: Nature Medicine

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Duke University School of Medicine, USA

Funder: Supported by a grant from the State of North Carolina with funds from the federal CARES Act, by funds from NIH, NIAID, DAIDS grant AI142596 (BFH), and by R01AI157155 (RSB) and U54 CA260543 (RSB). This project was also supported by the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with funding from the North Carolina Coronavirus Relief Fund established and appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly. This study was also supported by funding from an NIH F32 AI152296, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoctoral Enrichment Program Award, and was previously supported by an NIH NIAID T32 AI007151 (all three awarded to DRM). COVID sample processing was performed in the Duke Regional Biocontainment Laboratory, which received partial support for construction from the NIH/NIAD (UC6AI058607; GDS) with support from a cooperative agreement with DOD/DARPA (HR0011-17-2-0069; GDS).

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