Institute explores possible vaccine

The highly sought after coronavirus vaccine could come out of New Zealand, says a research institute director.

Malaghan Institute of Medical Research director Professor Graham Le Gros said it would be wonderful to see the vaccine come out of a New Zealand institute.

The institute’s team was in the early stages of exploring a possible vaccine.

‘‘We’ve got some vaccine tricks we’ve been working on for Hepatitis B virus and we’re interested to see if we can look at making a vaccine for the coronavirus,’’ Le Gros said.

‘‘We’ve got some good data and we’re just waiting on more information about the virus.’’

He said the research would need to be published by the people working with the virus, because they didn’t have virus samples to work with.

The Malaghan Institute of Medical research, in Wellington, is an independent research institute specialising in research on the immune system, particularly in the fields of cancer, allergies, gut health and infectious diseases.

Last year it launched a CAR

T-cell trial using immunotherapy to treat types of lymphomas and leukemia. Le Gros’ was born and raised in Marlborough, and his own expertise is in allergies and asthma.

Through the lens of immunotherapy, Le Gros said Covid-19 was an ‘‘instructive’’ reminder that all the world’s technology could not protect the population from new diseases.

‘‘What do you do when you have a completely new virus and no-one is actually resistant or vaccinated?’’ he said.

The Ministry of Health confirmed on Saturday that New Zealand had recorded its fifth confirmed case of coronavirus, but there were none in the Nelson Marlborough region.

While everyone had the same level of immunity to coronavirus – no resistance at all – the symptoms could be more damaging in older people or those with pre-existing conditions, Le Gros said. Given Marlborough’s higher proportion of older people, a virus outbreak had potential to do more damage.

Older people had less resistant immune systems and were harder to vaccinate. However, Le Gros said a vaccine would ‘‘tick up the immune system a little bit’’, likening it to getting a head start on a race.

‘‘You’ve got a 100 metre track – at the moment when the virus infects you, you’ve got to run the whole 100 metres but when you’ve been vaccinated you’re already 50 metres down the track and the virus has to try and catch up.’’

There’s no reason that the vaccine for a global virus couldn’t come from New Zealand, Le Gros said.

‘‘At the end of the day, it’s just a bloody virus, so I’m pretty confident.’’

‘‘We’ve got some good data and we’re just waiting on more information about the virus.’’ Professor Graham Le Gros Medical Research director, pictured.