First peer-reviewed coronavirus vaccine shows promise in mice

A new potential vaccine against the coronavirus sweeping the world has showed promise in mice, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine said Thursday.

In a peer-reviewed study published in the medical journal EBioMedicine, the researchers said their new development comes from earlier vaccines they had created to fight the two other deadly coronavirus strains already known: SARS, which broke out in China in 2003, and MERS, which hit Middle Eastern countries and South Korea in 2014.

“We have been designing coronavirus vaccines since 2003,” Andrea Gambotto, an associate professor of surgery at the Pitt School of Medicine and one of the study’s two lead authors, told The Hill in an interview.

The researchers repurposed those earlier vaccines to target a specific protein that protrudes from the new version.

“For us, it was easy to switch gears from one target to the other,” Gambotto said. “We had all the pieces together.”

The study showed that when tested in mice, the vaccine produced antibodies that were specific to the current coronavirus, and in quantities that are likely sufficient to neutralize the virus.

Unlike many vaccines, the Pitt-developed version would be delivered by a fingertip-sized patch that scratches the surface of a recipient’s skin. The scientists said the immune system reacts more strongly to irritations on the skin, in hopes of triggering it to recognize the coronavirus more quickly.

The delivery method is similar to a vaccine used to eradicate smallpox, said Louis Falo, chair of the dermatology department at the Pitt School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Falo said the team hoped to begin tests on human volunteers in short order.

“We’d like to begin testing in patients as soon as possible,” Falo said. “We would like to be in a phase one clinical trial in weeks. Not a week, maybe a month.”

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