Despite receiving one of the three covid-19 vaccines available in the U.S., many Americans continue to become infected with the virus.
Penn State researchers hope recently engineered proteins could put an end to that cycle.
The proteins, called immunogens, could protect people from new covid-19 variants — and other coronaviruses, too.
Researchers engineered the proteins from areas of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that are less susceptible to mutation.
“The whole point is to get a universal vaccine that is independent of strains,” Penn State professor Nikolay Dokholyan told the Tribune-Review.
Current covid-19 vaccines target areas of the virus’s spike protein that are susceptible to mutation. Proteins are “built to withstand a variety of physical and chemical challenges in nature,” explained postdoctoral scholar Yashavantha Vishweshwaraiah.
The Penn State-engineered immunogens target conserved regions of the spike protein.
“To our knowledge, we’re the first to design immunogens based on conserved regions of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein,” Vishweshwaraiah said in a news release. “The designed immunogens show promising results.”
The Huck Institutes provided $50,000 to fund this research, which began right after the pandemic hit in 2020.
Dokholyan used to work at the University of North Carolina and utilized knowledge he gained from his UNC research to engineer the proteins. He called the research “rather unorthodox and new.”
“This is all about a new technology that is radical and different from how things were done before,” he said.
The Penn State researchers will conduct further studies to “perfect” the immunogen’s design and immune response. Researchers said the proteins could someday be used as vaccine candidates in clinical trials.
There are other universal covid vaccines in development, said Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert Dr. Amesh Adalja, who was not involved in the Penn State research.
“As next-generation covid vaccines are developed, more universal vaccines that are not susceptible to being diminished by variants will be an important advance,” Adalja said.
