Scientific Data Supporting Our Proposal For COVID-19 Vaccine

Scientific Data Supporting Our Proposal For COVID-19 Vaccine

With a lot of countries taking more drastic measures and enforcing limited social contact (known as social distancing), we are left to ask, what is next?

We believe it is possible to make a vaccine for COVID-19 that provides long lasting immunity. We also believe we can do this, fast. We recently shared our design here.

Since then, we have found several papers that support our line of thinking. Included among these, an article by Liniger et al. that describes the development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV; This is another strain of coronavirus that caused an outbreak in 2002 to 2003. 

Here, the scientists demonstrated that they were able to generate a strong immune response against SARS-CoV. How? They used live Measles viruses as a vector and inserted the gene(s) for SARS-CoV spike glycoprotein (S) and nucleocapsid (N). When the group advanced to mouse studies, they found “the new viruses showed strong expression of the S and N proteins and they induced high antibody titers against Measles Virus and the vectored SARS-CoV antigens.”

Based on these encouraging results, we believe using Measles, either as the viral backbone or by inserting the glycoprotein in VSV as we previously suggested, are viable options and strong candidates for a COVID-19 vaccine.

We have some initial contacts with the pharmaceutical industry, but we are continuing to look for partners who are interested in working with us and can bring this vaccine to clinical trials. We have the designs, we can build the viruses for the vaccine in less than two weeks, but we do not have the expertise or experience to conduct clinical trials.

Please contact us via covid19 [at] hgi.bio

Stay healthy!

References:
[1] Induction of neutralising antibodies and cellular immune responses against SARS coronavirus by recombinant measles viruses
[2] A recombinant VSV-vectored MERS-CoV vaccine induces neutralizing antibody and T cell responses in rhesus monkeys after single dose immunization.
[3] Single injection recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus vaccines protect ferrets against lethal Nipah virus disease.
[4] A VSV-based Zika virus vaccine protects mice from lethal challenge.
[5] The Immune Response to a Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Vaccine Vector Is Independent of Particulate Antigen Secretion and Protein Turnover Rate

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.