Covid-19 vaccine

[Prophet Zacharia]

University of Pittsburgh today announced a vaccine has been developed that effectively produces antibodies to the Covid-19 virus in mice studies.

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/ebiom/PIIS2352-3964(20)30118-3.pdf

[Mr. Silly]

Lets hope it works and is safe.

[Prophet Zacharia]

11 minutes ago, Mr. Silly said:

Lets hope it works and is safe.

It’s using virus proteins, not live-attenuated or killed virus, and similar to effective vaccines to other corona viruses.

 

“We had previous experience on SARS-CoV in 2003 and MERS-CoV in 2014. These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus. We knew exactly where to fight this new virus,” said co-senior author Andrea Gambotto, associate professor of surgery at the Pitt School of Medicine. “That’s why it’s important to fund vaccine research. You never know where the next pandemic will come from.”

“Our ability to rapidly develop this vaccine was a result of scientists with expertise in diverse areas of research working together with a common goal,” said co-senior author Louis Falo, professor and chair of dermatology at Pitt’s School of Medicine and UPMC.

Compared to the experimental mRNA vaccine candidate that just entered clinical trials, the vaccine described in this paper—which the authors are calling PittCoVacc, short for Pittsburgh CoronaVirus Vaccine—follows a more established approach, using lab-made pieces of viral protein to build immunity. It’s the same way the current flu shots work.  

The researchers also used a novel approach to deliver the drug, called a microneedle array, to increase potency. This array is a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles that delivers the spike protein pieces into the skin, where the immune reaction is strongest. The patch goes on like a Band-Aid and then the needles—which are made entirely of sugar and the protein pieces—simply dissolve into the skin.

“We developed this to build on the original scratch method used to deliver the smallpox vaccine to the skin, but as a high-tech version that is more efficient and reproducible patient to patient,” Falo said. “And it’s actually pretty painless—it feels kind of like Velcro.”

The system is also highly scalable. The protein pieces are manufactured by a “cell factory”—layers upon layers of cultured cells engineered to express the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein—that can be stacked further to multiply yield. Purifying the protein can also be done at industrial scale. Mass-producing the microneedle array involves spinning down the protein-sugar mixture into a mold using a centrifuge. Once manufactured, the vaccine can sit at room temperature until it’s needed, eliminating the need for refrigeration during transport or storage.

“For most vaccines, you don’t need to address scalability to begin with,” Gambotto said. “But when you try to develop a vaccine quickly against a pandemic that’s the first requirement.”

When tested in mice, PittCoVacc generated a surge of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 within two weeks of the microneedle prick.

Those animals haven’t been tracked long term yet, but the researchers point out that mice who got their MERS-CoV vaccine produced a sufficient level of antibodies to neutralize the virus for at least a year, and so far the antibody levels of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated animals seem to be following the same trend.

Importantly, the SARS-CoV-2 microneedle vaccine maintains its potency even after being thoroughly sterilized with gamma radiation—a key step toward making a product that’s suitable for use in humans.

The authors are now in the process of applying for an investigational new drug (IND) approval from the Food and Drug Administration in anticipation of starting a phase I human clinical trial in the next few months.

“Testing in patients would typically require at least a year and probably longer,” Falo said. “This particular situation is different from anything we’ve ever seen, so we don’t know how long the clinical development process will take. Recently announced revisions to the normal processes suggest we may be able to advance this faster.”

Additional authors on the study are Eun Kim, Geza Erdos, Shaohua Huang, Thomas Kenniston, Stephen Balmert, Cara Donahue Carey, Michael Epperly, William Klimstra and Emrullah Korkmaz, all of Pitt; and Bart Haagmans, of Erasmus Medical Center.

[MickinMD ★]

29 minutes ago, Prophet Zacharia said:

University of Pittsburgh today announced a vaccine has been developed that effectively produces antibodies to the Covid-19 virus in mice studies.

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/ebiom/PIIS2352-3964(20)30118-3.pdf

I hope it works on humans and can go into the field quick.

A decade or so ago, another U. of Pittsburgh team was working on a drug that attacked capillaries providing blood to very rapidly-growing cells: which is what cancer cells are. But I haven't heard how that researched concluded or if it's still being worked on.  The idea of starving cancer cells rather than attacking them directly was novel!

[maddmaxx ★]

Yea.  The mice are saved.

[bikeman564™]

[Indy]

Supposedly, there are several places with vaccines that they are wanting to go to human trial with now and just wanting FDA approval.  They want to do them in hot spot areas and determine which ones are most effective.  Just waiting on a FDA green light.

[Dottleshead ★]

One of them is here in Seattle.  I think we were the first in the nation to do it.  Happened a week or two ago.

[Dottleshead ★]

Phase I in the article.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-19-vaccine-candidates-front-runners/story?id=69881230

[12string]

The RNA approach is interesting, because of the speed at which vaccines can be grown.

Makes me wonder if my DiL's research was used in this rapid development.  She made a significant discovery in RNA division, and another in Microscopy with which to examine RNA.  And not that distance matters, but her office is less than a mile from ModeRNA.  I'd like to think that these interim discoveries get put to use to improve research speed and accuracy