Cambridge Team Develops Universal Vaccine To Curb Variants Of Covid, Ebola Infections

In a significant breakthrough, scientists at the University of Cambridge along with Digitally Immune Optimised Synthetic Vaccines (DIOSynVax), a spin-out company from the same university, have designed Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine using computational simulations that offers broad protection from thousand variants of virus such as Corona or Ebola.

What is a Sarbeco virus?

Sarbeco is a beta coronavirus, the one that gave rise to virus variants like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Simply put, the Sarbeco virus evolves into viruses like SARS Cov-2, which causes Covid-19 infection in human beings.

The first human clinical trial of the universal Sarbeco vaccine has been tested on 39 healthy volunteers, aged between 18 and 50 years old. It was administered as a DNA vaccine using a micro fluid jet in a needle-free method in four doses. The jab triggered immune responses not only to SARS CoV-2 and SARS but also viruses that spread from species like birds from humans and cause potential future pandemics.

As viruses with mutation pose a severe threat to public health, the vaccine technology used an AI-designed ‘super antigen’ which is compatible with most vaccine delivery systems. The vaccine is likely to provide long-lasting protection against a broad range of virus variants, for example infections evolving from Ebola and SARS CoV groups.

The results were commendable. Before it was tested on humans, the team administered it to animals. They found out that the vaccine provided a strong immune response against a range of corona viruses. Scientists said that the vaccine is a future proof-the experiment and proved that a single vaccine could prevent us from future pandemics before they begin.

In a statement, Professor Jonathan Heeney from the Lab of Viral Zoonotics, University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, the scientific lead of the research said, “We’ve converted vaccine development from being reactive to being future proof. Our vaccines will continue to provide protection against viruses even as they mutate into new strains.”

The trial’s chief investigator, Professor Saul Faust from the University of Southampton mentioned, “This new class of universal vaccines is future-proofed. They not only protect against many variants simultaneously, but potentially against related viruses that haven’t yet emerged and spilt over to humans.”

He added that “If we can develop and clinically advance this new class of vaccines before a virus outbreak begins, millions of lives could be saved, lockdowns avoided and the economy preserved.”

However, the team stated that the large phase second clinical trial is likely to test it on a diverse population before it is released for public use.

(With inputs from University of Cambridge research portal, Journal of Infection[viruses and viral diseases], and Global Autoimmune Institute).

This article was written by Yashwanth Rodda, a student of IIT Hyderabad, interning with Deccan Chronicle.