Scientists develop new vaccine for the coronavirus we don’t know about yet!

New research has the potential to make sure we are ready for future outbreaks...

ANEW jab is effective against coronaviruses that haven’t even emerged yet, claim scientists.

Cambridge University researchers have developed new vaccine technology that has been shown in mice to provide protection against a wide range of viruses with potential for future devastating outbreaks.

Their aim is to create a vaccine that will protect people against the next coronavirus pandemic – and have it ready before the outbreak even begins.

The new approach – ‘proactive vaccinology’ – involves scientists building a vaccine before the disease-causing pathogen emerges.

The new vaccine works by training the body’s immune system to recognise specific regions of eight different coronaviruses – including SARS-COV-1, SARSCOV-2, and several currently circulating in bats and have the potential to jump to humans and cause a pandemic.

Key to its effectiveness is that the specific virus regions the vaccine targets also appear in many related coronaviruses, say scientists.

By training the immune system to attack those regions, it gives protection against other coronaviruses not represented in the vaccine – including ones that haven’t even been identified yet.

Conventional vaccines include a single antigen to train the immune system to target a single specific virus. That may not protect against a diverse range of existing coronaviruses, or against pathogens that are newly emerging.

The researchers explained that the new vaccine, for example, does not include the SARS-COV-1 coronavirus, which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, yet it still induces an immune response to that virus.

Study first author Rory Hills, a graduate researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Pharmacology, said: “Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next coronavirus pandemic, and have it ready before the pandemic has even started. We’ve created a vaccine that provides protection against a broad range of different coronaviruses – including ones we don’t even know about yet.”

Senior author Professor Mark Howarth, also of Cambridge’s Department of Pharmacology, said: “We don’t have to wait for new coronaviruses to emerge.

“We know enough about coronaviruses, and different immune responses to them, that we can get going with building protective vaccines against unknown coronaviruses now.”

The work involved a collaboration between scientists at Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and the California Institute of Technology in the United States.

The vaccine is due to enter clinical trials next year, but scientists say its “complex” nature makes it “challenging” to manufacture on a large scale.

Our focus is to create a vaccine that will protect us against the next pandemic Researcher Rory Hills