21 January 2021

Dr. Vladimir Cmiljanovic: “In 6 to 12 months, vaccines may not be as effective as they are at the moment”

Our CEO, Dr. Vladimir Cmiljanovic, talked about the challenges of developing a safe and effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine in RocketVax for Macedonian Kanal 5 TV.

“These first-generation vaccines attack the spike protein. The spike protein, as you can see, is this red bit on this picture here. This is called the spike protein, and every vaccine in existence today is based on blocking this protein so that the virus cannot enter the cell and infect it. This is how the vaccines are built.

To create an immune response and antibodies that block the spike protein; to create immune cells to kill the virus, in simpler terms. However, the problem is that the virus has already started mutating. This is something we, the scientists, expected the virus to do, and these mutations occur specifically in the spike protein.

My personal assessment is based on science and is neutral: we should take any of the available vaccines. The American ones, Pfizer or Moderna. You see, the country of Switzerland for example, wouldn’t just slap a stamp of approval on the vaccine; the vaccine is approved.

According to scientific assessments, there is a chance that, in 6 to 12 months, the vaccine may not be as effective as it is at the moment. The reason for this is that when the entire world has undergone vaccination, the vaccines will force the virus to mutate. Because all the vaccines are based on the aforementioned spike protein. This means that it is a very likely scenario that the vaccines will provide protection for a while and then either stop protecting us or protect us to a lesser extent.

This is why it is important that there is a new vaccine out there and we are working on that vaccine, on the next-gen vaccine. And what is our vaccine? It is the entire coronavirus but attenuated. Attenuated. We are strongly convinced that our vaccine will be free from side effects and the problems of the original virus, God forbid.

The reason is that we have designed the virus, our virus, to infect a healthy cell only once, and then the entire process is over. It cannot replicate inside the human body. And why is it important to design virus-based, viral vaccines?

It is important that our virus is alive, so to speak, and that our immune system recognizes it when it enters the body. And when it enters the cell and infects it, viral proteins are there on the surface of the infected cells. After that, healthy immune cells come and recognize that the infected cell has viral proteins and attack the virus from all sides. In this way, we are actually teaching the immune system safely. We are making it stronger in a way, so that when a real virus attacks when an infection occurs, the immune response is already trained to recognize all of these proteins.

This means that, when looking at this picture, our immune system is currently being trained to recognize only these red spike proteins, but you can clearly see that there are other proteins here as well; our vaccine aims to train our immune system to recognize these proteins, the yellow and the orange ones, among others.”

Follow our LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook page to keep up with our progress.

PREVIOUS NEWS NEXT NEWS