The COVID-19 pandemic, which has been ongoing since 2020, is now responsible for around 7 million deaths worldwide, necessitates continuous innovation in vaccine development. Despite the significant success of the existing vaccines against COVID-19, there remains an urgent need for improved vaccines that can offer broader immunity against emerging virus variants and reduce ongoing transmission. To this end, the scientists genetically modified the SARS-CoV-2 virus using the so-called "One-to-Stop (OTS)" strategy in such a way that the virus was significantly attenuated, resulting in the promising vaccine candidate OTS-228. Administered intranasally to both golden Syrian hamsters and K18-hACE2 mice, OTS-228 showed promising safety and efficacy. It is particularly noteworthy that the live-attenuated vaccine was not transferred to contact animals, and all animals developed a broad and strong immune response against SARS-CoV-2.
Key findings from the pre-clinical studies published in Nature Microbiology journal include:
- Broad Variant Protection: Vaccinated animals remained disease-free when exposed to both the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and newer variants such as Omicron BA.2, BA.5, and XBB1.5.
- Transmission Prevention: The live-attenuated vaccine completely prevented virus transmission to unvaccinated contact animals for the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and significantly reduced transmission for Omicron variants.
- Strong Immune Response: All vaccinated animals exhibited a broad and strong immune response, indicating the vaccine’s potential to offer comprehensive protection.
With these results, the researchers are confident that they will be able to restrict the further spread of COVID-19. The scientists emphasize that the construct they have created can be adapted with very simple means and can therefore be used to react quickly to newly emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. In addition, it is also possible to apply this method of attenuation to completely different, newly emerging and potentially pandemic viruses in order to produce a valid, safe and effective live vaccine candidate.
The researchers stress that these specific and important results could not have been achieved without the use of animal experiments.
OTS-228 is now being further developed by Rocketvax AG for the use in clinical trials, moving us closer to a more effective defense against COVID-19 and its variants.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01755-1
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