MERS vaccine trialled
The first vaccine for MERS is on the path to human trials – it has been found to protect mice, camels and monkeys from the infection, paving the way for human-based testing later this year. The so-called ‘DNA vaccine’ has been collaboratively developed, with the University of Pennsylvania in the US leading the initiative; a paper on the current successes of the vaccine was recently published in the journal Infectious Disease.
Conventionally, vaccines developed to combat viral diseases utilise the injection of a live virus or foreign protein – referred to as an ‘antigen’ – which hopefully generates protective immune responses in those to which they are administered. This new vaccine, however, utilises a different method, whereby a DNA sequence coded for a MERS antigen is injected into the body, and the body is relied upon to replicate the protein internally. The immune system will then hopefully react to the presence of the antigen and develop its own antibodies, which will defend against future infections. Karuppiah Muthumani, one of the lead authors of the study and a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that this DNA-based vaccine could be safer than conventional methods: “Unlike attenuated vaccines, which are essentially weakened live viruses, there is no possibility through mutation for reversion into a live replicative virus.”
One dose of the vaccination protected eight rhesus monkeys from MERS, with the same positive response seen in three camels, and David Weiner, another author of the study who also works at the University of Pennsylvania, says that US-based Inovio and Korean company GeneOne Life Science are set to bring the vaccine ‘into human safety and efficiency studies by the end of 2015’.