All in the spike: How past virus research gave a head start to the COVID-19 vaccine
It’s not often that we can sense grateful for the widespread chilly. But in the circumstance of COVID-19, earlier investigate on the typical cold virus and other viruses has been critical to COVID-19 vaccine development.
In a way, it was a excellent storm—in a great way, says Jason McLellan, Ph.D. Dr. McLellan began his vaccine investigate at the Countrywide Institutes of Well being (NIH) in 2008. Immediately after initial functioning to consider and build an HIV vaccine, he switched to performing with Barney Graham, M.D., Ph.D., the deputy director of NIH’s Vaccine Exploration Heart.
With Dr. Graham, Dr. McLellan researched vaccines for perilous respiratory viruses, including RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), which can be lethal in young children, and MERS-CoV (Center East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus), a virus really identical to SARS-CoV-2, which brings about COVID-19.
“MERS is also triggered by a coronavirus like SARS-CoV-2, with these big, protruding spike proteins on