Covid-19 vaccine from Cambridge will have clinical trial in the autumn

Researchers at Cambridge University argue that the computer-generated "laser-specific" approach could help avoid hyper-inflammatory reactions caused by the virus.

The University of Cambridge has been developed a Covid vaccine and they will start a clinical trial in the UK in the autumn. The government’s agency, Innovate the UK has boosted the research as much a £1.9 million funding.

Cambridge Covid-19 vaccine ready for trial

Cambridge researchers have provided support for a collaboration between Cambridge spin-out company DIOSynVax, the University of Cambridge and the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.

The researcher used from all known genetic sequences, including those from bats. They are natural hosts of many relatives of human Covid-19, to develop their vaccine candidate called DIOS-CoVax2.

They also developed libraries of computer-generated antigen structures which can train the immune system to target key regions of the virus and systems to make good anti-viral responses. Researchers say this “laser-specific” computer-generated approach is able to help avoid the adverse hyper-inflammatory responses that can be triggered by recognition of the wrong parts on the virus’s surface.

The head of the laboratory

Professor Jonathan Heeney, head of the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics at the University of Cambridge, and founder of DIOSynVax, said “Our approach involves 3D computer modelling of the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s structure. He also told that it uses information on the virus itself as well as its relatives, such as SARS, MERS and other Covid-19 carried by animals that threaten to ‘spillover’ to humans again to cause future human epidemics.

He added, “We’re looking for chinks in its armour, crucial pieces of the virus that we can use to construct the vaccine to direct the immune response in the right direction. Ultimately we aim to make a vaccine that will not only protect from SARS-CoV-2, but also other related coronaviruses that may spill over from animals to humans.”

He explained that their strategy includes targeting domains of the virus’s structure that are absolutely critical for docking with a cell while avoiding the parts that could make things worse. Then they end up with is a mimic, a synthetic part of the virus minus those non-essential elements that could trigger a bad immune response.

Some experts said that antibodies to the wrong part of the spike protein have been implicated in triggering hyper-inflammatory immune responses, causing life-threatening Covid-19 disease. The differences between other Covid-19 with DIOSynVax is something to deliver their antigens. Whilst most vaccine use RNA, DIOSynVax’s based around DNA.