US Army Developing World’s First “Universal” COVID Vaccine As Original Jabs Await Final Approval
December 22, 2021 in News by RBN Staff
Source: Zero Hedge
While the full approval of the best-selling mRNA vaccines by the FDA remains elusive, the US is already working on giving the ‘Supersoldiers of Tomorrow’ a leg up by developing a “universal” COVID vaccine that will supposedly be effective against all future variants. The US Army is wrapping up early clinical trials of the new jab in the coming weeks.
Named SpFN, for Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle, the new jab has reportedly shown promise in non-human primate trials and early human trial results are expected to begin in December, according to a press release from the US Army Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
The vaccine is intended to be a jumping off point for a forward-thinking “pan-SARS” strategy that aims to address the current pandemic and acts as a first line of defense against variants of concern and similar viruses that could emerge in the future.
“The accelerating emergence of human coronaviruses throughout the past two decades and the rise of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including most recently Omicron, underscore the continued need for next-generation preemptive vaccines that confer broad protection against coronavirus diseases,” said Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, Director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Branch at WRAIR, co-inventor of the vaccine and the US Army lead for SpFN. “Our strategy has been to develop a ‘pan-coronavirus’ vaccine technology that could potentially offer safe, effective and durable protection against multiple coronavirus strains and species.”
SpFN entered Phase 1 human trials in April 2021. Early analyses, expected to conclude this month, will provide insights into whether SpFN’s potency and breadth, as demonstrated in preclinical trials, will carry over into humans.
The data will also help researchers compare SpFN’s immunity profile to those of other COVID vaccines already authorized for emergency use.
“This vaccine stands out in the COVID-19 vaccine landscape,” Modjarrad said. “The repetitive and ordered display of the coronavirus spike protein on a multi-faced nanoparticle may stimulate immunity in such a way as to translate into significantly broader protection.”
We imagine we’ll be hearing more about this very soon.
ADDITIONAL STORY via: Defense One
A scientist with the Emerging Infectious Disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research conducts studies to find a vaccine for COVID-19 in July 2020. Shawn Fury, Army
US Army Creates Single Vaccine Against All COVID & SARS Variants, Researchers Say
Within weeks, Walter Reed researchers expect to announce that human trials show success against Omicron—and even future strains.
Within weeks, scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research expect to announce that they have developed a vaccine that is effective against COVID-19 and all its variants, even Omicron, as well as previous SARS-origin viruses that have killed millions of people worldwide.
The achievement is the result of almost two years of work on the virus. The Army lab received its first DNA sequencing of the COVID-19 virus in early 2020. Very early on, Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch decided to focus on making a vaccine that would work against not just the existing strain but all of its potential variants as well.
Walter Reed’s Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, or SpFN, completed animal trials earlier this year with positive results. Phase 1 of human trials, which tested the vaccine against Omicron and the other variants, wrapped up this month, again with positive results that are undergoing final review, Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of Walter Reed’s infectious diseases branch, said in an exclusive interview with Defense One. The new vaccine will still need to undergo phase 2 and phase 3 trials.
Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein.
“It’s very exciting to get to this point for our entire team and I think for the entire Army as well,” Modjarrad said.
The vaccine’s human trials took longer than expected, he said, because the lab needed to test the vaccine on subjects who had neither been vaccinated nor previously infected with COVID.
Increasing vaccination rates and the rapid spread of the Delta and Omicron variants made that difficult.
“With Omicron, there’s no way really to escape this virus. You’re not going to be able to avoid it. So I think pretty soon either the whole world will be vaccinated or have been infected,” Modjarrad said.
The next step is seeing how the new pan-coronavirus vaccine interacts with people who were previously vaccinated or previously sick. Walter Reed is working with a yet-to-be-named industry partner for that wider rollout.
“We need to evaluate it in the real-world setting and try to understand how does the vaccine perform in much larger numbers of individuals who have already been vaccinated with something else initially…or already been sick,” Modjarrad said.
He said nearly all of Walter Reed’s 2,500 staff have had some role in the vaccine’s nearly-two-year development.
“We decided to take a look at the long game rather than just only focusing on the original emergence of SARS, and instead understand that viruses mutate, there will be variants that emerge, future viruses that may emerge in terms of new species. Our platform and approach will equip people to be prepared for that.”
