CCMB’s Covid-19 vax candidate uses mRNA
Scientists at the Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) in the city’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) announced on Friday that they had developed a potential mRNA vaccine candidate against Covid-19. Scientists said the technology could be used to develop vaccines against other dangerous disease.
Madhusudhana Rao, CEO, AIC-CCMB, and lead scientist of the project, told the media that the team was able to develop the vaccine candidate in less than a year.
“Even though Covid-19 is waning, the vaccine platform holds promise for many infectious diseases that India faces,’‘ Rao said. “This mRNA vaccine is indigenous and solely the brainchild of the technology team at the AIC-CCMB.”
He said that the AICCCMB team lacked the potent mRNA vaccine technology developed by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNtech in the US and Europe. The AICCCMB technology is different from the mRNA vaccine being developed by Gennova Bio, which is based on self-replicating RNA.
CCMB Director Vinay Nandicoori said, “This a proof-of-principle wherein we have shown that we can replicate the mRNA vaccine technology end-to-end. The beauty of this technology is in its modularity and rapid turn-around times. That means that with significantly less effort, the technology can be used to sire vaccines for infectious diseases like dengue, tuberculosis malaria.”
Dr Rajesh Iyer, a scientist in the mRNA project, said, “We observed robust immune responses against the SARSCoV-2 spike protein in mice upon administration of two doses of the mRNA. The anti-spike antibodies generated were found to be more than 90 per cent efficient in preventing the human
ACE2 receptor binding to the Coronavirus.”
Team members Dr Preethi Jampala, Dr Nandita Tanneru, Dr Kranthi Kiran Akula and Anviti Vashishit, along with Dr Iyer, who were at the event. said they were ready to work with private players for human trials since CCMB does not have the capacity to conduct human trials. The candidate vaccine is still in animal testing phase.