Pan-coronavirus vaccine pipeline takes form
Elie Dolgin • April 19, 2022
Dozens of ‘universal’ coronavirus vaccines are in development. But will new technology platforms be able to overcome immunological unknowns?
As debates over additional booster shots for COVID-19 intensify, many public health researchers are looking to the influenza model of vaccination as a guide for how to handle the lasting threat of SARS-CoV-2. That could mean annual shots, as is routine today with seasonal flu prophylaxis.
But just as scientists have long sought a universal flu jab that can provide lasting protection against multiple subtypes of that respiratory virus, so too the field is on the hunt for pan-coronavirus vaccines that can ward off future variants of SARS-CoV-2 and preempt the next pandemic.
Dozens of non-profits, government agencies and vaccine makers have made these candidates a top research priority.
Read more at Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.
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Drug makers are scrambling to navigate an ‘existential threat’ to a once-celebrated technology.