More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, it continues to challenge the world. The ability of SARS-CoV-2 to rapidly mutate has made new variants more infectious than the previous ones and is getting better at hiding human immune responses.
Now, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues from other institutions presented a novel way of developing a COVIDD--19 vaccine that is more durable and effective against all variants. It can be taken as a pill, by inhalation, and other methods of delivery.
How Current COVID-19 Vaccines are Made
Making new vaccines involve many steps and since the beginning of the pandemic, different public organizations and private companies have worked to make COVID-19 vaccines available to the public as soon as possible. Although the vaccines were developed rapidly, all of them followed the necessary steps to ensure their after and effectiveness.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are five steps that should be followed in developing vaccines. These steps include the initial development in which knowledge about the virus comes from past research to help speed up its development, followed by three clinical trials.
In the US, the three phases of clinical trials are performed at a time and involve tens of thousands of volunteers of different ages, and backgrounds. It is the period in which researchers compare outcomes between vaccinated people and those who are not.
The next step is applying for authorization or approval to make the vaccines available to everyone. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration gives out this permit to newly developed vaccines. After getting the authorization or approval, they are now allowed to manufacture and distribute their vaccines.
The last step is to monitor or track the distributed vaccines to ensure their safety. The distribution of COVID-19 vaccines has been dubbed as one of the most intense safety monitoring in US history as vaccines required ultra-cold temperature to be effective, while some side effects were also reported after the vaccination. But these are all normal reactions as the body builds protection.
New Way Upgrades COVID-19 Vaccines
The current COVID-19 vaccines are all made from the DNA sequence of the original strain of SARS-CoV-2. According to a previous report from Medical Xpress, most of these vaccines target the spike protein to prevent it from attaching itself to the cells. Doing so would activate the immune system to release antibodies that will stop viruses from infecting the cells and destroying them.
However, SARS-CoV-2 has proven to be a slippery customer that mutates to change its spike protein and become more infectious. That means that scientists have to upgrade vaccines to counter this.
In the new study titled "Structure-selected RBM immunogens prime polyclonal memory responses that neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern," published in the July 21, 2022 issue of PLOS Pathogens, researchers explained that using plasmids genetically modified that contain bits of the genetic material of the virus could target its spike protein.
These plasmids are small, circular DNA molecules from bacteria that are physically separate from the chromosome DNA and have the ability to replicate on their own, Medical Xpress reported.
They cloned selected spike protein into a plasmid DNA to provoke the production of neutralizing antibodies that target the virus spike protein. The team tested their approach in beta, delta, and omicron variants and found the immune response was similar across all variants. This approach could be used to make new vaccines, although researchers acknowledged that it will be an uphill battle.
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