COVID-19: Moderna’s vaccine entered advanced stage human trials (pictured)
Washington:
The COVID-19 vaccine from the American biotech company Moderna induced a robust immune response and prevented the coronavirus from replicating in the noses and lungs of monkeys, according to a study published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The fact that the vaccine prevented the virus from replicating in the nose is considered particularly crucial in preventing its transmission to others.
The same result did not happen when the Oxford University vaccine was tested on monkeys, although this vaccine did prevent the virus from entering the lungs of animals and making them very sick.
In the Moderna animal study, three groups of eight rhesus macaques were given either a placebo or the vaccine at two different dose levels – 10 micrograms and 100 micrograms.
All of the vaccinated macaques produced high levels of neutralizing antibodies that attack part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus used to invade cells.
Notably, the monkeys receiving both doses produced these antibodies at higher levels than those found in humans who have recovered from COVID-19.
The authors reported that the vaccine also induced the production of a different immune cell known as T lymphocytes, which may have helped boost the overall response.
A major concern is that the vaccines in development could actually backfire by amplifying rather than suppressing the disease.
Improvement in vaccine-associated respiratory disease (VAERD) has been linked to the production of a specific type of T cell known as Th2 – but these cells were not produced in the experiment, which suggests that this vaccine will not work against him.
Four weeks after the monkeys received their second injection, they were exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, both through the nose and directly to the lungs via a tube.
After two days, no replicating virus was detected in the lungs of seven of the eight macaques in both the low and high dose groups.
In contrast, all eight of the placebo group continued to have the virus present.
None of the eight macaques in the high dose groups had detectable levels of the virus in the nose two days after exposure.
“This is the first time that an experimental COVID-19 vaccine tested on non-human primates has been shown to produce such rapid viral control in the upper respiratory tract,” said the National Institutes for Health, which co -developed the vaccine.
A COVID-19 vaccine capable of stopping the virus in the lungs will prevent the disease from getting worse, while preventing the virus from replicating in the nose would reduce transmission.
The Moderna vaccine uses genetic material in the form of viral RNA to encode the information necessary for the growth of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein inside the human body to trigger an immune response.
The spike proteins give coronaviruses their crown-shaped appearance and are used to invade human cells, but they are considered relatively harmless.
The advantage of this technology is that it bypasses the need to manufacture viral proteins in the laboratory, thus helping to speed up mass production.
Moderna’s vaccine and the vaccine co-developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca have entered human trials at an advanced stage.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
