Scientists working on a new Covid vaccine have made a significant discovery that could alter the future of booster jabs.
The team, who are developing Australia’s first mRNA jab at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) in partnership with the Doherty Institute, believe they may have found a solution to the diminishing effectiveness of boosters as Covid variants continue to evolve.
Their ‘membrane-anchored receptor-binding domain’ (mRNA RBD-TM) vaccine has been tested against older Covid vaccines, according to News. au.
A report published in Molecular Therapy Methods and Clinical Development states: “Waves of coronavirus infections resulting from the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic are caused by mutants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that evade humoral immunity previously acquired by way of either vaccination or viral infection.”
It continues: “Although vaccination with an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 whole-spike vaccine provides protection against serious illness, 1 , 2 boosting immunity with ancestral vaccines is ineffective at preventing infection by Omicron variants. To address this shortcoming, bivalent mRNA spike vaccines were introduced that initially encoded BA.1, and later BA.5, spike proteins in addition to the ancestral spike protein.
“To reduce the incidence of COVID-related deaths, there is a need for broad-spectrum second-generation vaccines to protect elderly and vulnerable individuals from infection by emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 or other known betacoronaviruses.”
Professor Colin Pouton from MIPS explained: “The concept of immune imprinting is not a new one – the same phenomenon occurs with influenza, and there is now mounting evidence of widespread imprinting attributed to exposure to ancestral Covid-19 strains.”
He added: “To address this, we developed an alternative platform designed to target SARS-CoV-2 virus mutations in the tip of the ‘spike’, otherwise known as the receptor binding domain. We found that, when administered as a third-dose booster following two doses of ancestral vaccine.”
It is hoped the work will solve the issue leading to the declining effectiveness of future vaccines.
In related news, a recent study reported last month suggests that severe Covid infections might reduce the size of cancerous tumours. Published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the research involved mice and examined the complex interactions between the immune system and cancer cells.
The study focused on monocytes, a type of white blood cell crucial in fighting viruses and other threats. In cancer patients, these monocytes can sometimes become supportive of the tumour, shielding it from the immune system’s attacks.
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