You may have heard talk of pan-coronavirus vaccines in the works! One such vaccine is being developed by the US Army. Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) have developed a vaccine against coronavirus with pre-clinical data suggesting that it has the ability to neutralize several SARS-CoV-2 variants (COVID-19) along with SARS-CoV-1 (SARS).
This vaccine utilizes a ferritin nanoparticle technology which has the potential to be designed in a modular fashion allowing for spike proteins from different variants or viruses to be inserted into the many faces of the nanoparticle at different ratios. The currently tested design only contains one version of the spike protein but one that their scientists believe will provide more broadly neutralizing antibodies that can work against multiple variants.
In this post we break down the ferritin nanoparticle technology, the different preclinical studies (in mice and nonhuman primates) and the design of the clinical trial. All to help you better understand this new technology and the potential that it has to be one of the next generation vaccines that covers past variants as well as future ones.
We will update once clinical trial data is officially released!