Wired: The Race Is On to Develop a Vaccine Against Every Coronavirus
On OCTOBER 21, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave most of the US population permission to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster—a shot in such high demand that 10 million people somehow obtained it in advance of that approval in an effort to feel a little safer. Two days after that, the government of the United Kingdom made things feel a little less safe: It announced the emergence of Delta-plus, a new variant that already accounts for 6 percent of cases in that country, and is even more infectious than the highly transmissible Delta.
Those back-to-back events captured the nauseating pandemic roller coaster: Things are getting better. No, they’re not. Yes, they are. No, they’re definitely not. The endless repetition is exhausting. It has led a loose coalition of scientists to ask: What if we could just make the roller coaster … stop? ...
Popular Science: "Why are kids’ immune systems different from adults?"
Nearly a year after the first COVID-19 vaccines were authorized for use, the United States is on the brink of expanding eligibility to the last group of unvaccinated Americans: young children.
Pfizer’s vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11 is likely to be approved by the CDC as early as next week, and based on historical patterns, Moderna’s will probably follow a few weeks later.
CBS17: "Mixing vaccines for boosters could produce higher antibody response, new study shows"
A new study from the National Institute of Health looked at mixing and matching each vaccine booster combination. When it comes to boosters, the study found it’s safe and effective to mix and match vaccines.
Drug Discovery News: Designing vaccines with reverse vaccinology
Most vaccine development begins with looking at the pathogen. Scientists pinpoint key residues needed for the virus to enter the body and develop vaccines that train the body to recognize signatures of the foreign invader. Kevin O'Neil Saunders, associate professor of surgery and director of research at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute at Duke University develops vaccines after analyzing the body’s immune response to a pathogen.
DHVI Immunology Quality Assessment (IQA) Program Receives Additional 7 year contract, Totaling 28 Consecutive Years for IQA
The Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) received a $16,218,499 (includes the base period and all options), seven-year (if all term options are exercised) contract to implement the Immunology Quality Assessment (IQA) Program from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to provide a resource to evaluate and enhance the ability of U.S. and non-U.S. laboratories to participate in NIAID-funded and collaborative clinical studies.
Duke study reveals mechanisms of increased infectivity, antibody resistance of SARS-CoV-2 variants
Combining structural biology and computation, a Duke-led team of researchers has identified how multiple mutations on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein independently create variants that are more transmissible and potentially resistant to antibodies.
Antibody Disease Enhancement of COVID-19 Does Not Appear to Occur in Animal Models
In the fight against viruses, antibodies have the potential to either block infection or enable infection and make the disease worse, leading to concern about their use as a therapy for COVID-19.
Newly Identified Antibody Can Be Targeted by HIV Vaccines
A newly identified group of antibodies that binds to a coating of sugars on the outer shell of HIV is effective in neutralizing the virus and points to a novel vaccine approach that could also potentially be used against SARS-CoV-2 and fungal pathogens, researchers at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute report.