NIAID Issues New Awards To Fund “Pan-Coronavirus” Vaccines – Primary Focus on Potential Pandemic-Causing Viruses

Credit: NIAID Integrated Research Facility

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded approximately $36.3 million to three academic institutions to research the development of vaccines to protect against multiple types of coronaviruses and viral variants. . The awards are intended to fuel vaccine research for a diverse family of coronaviruses, with a primary focus on potential pandemic-causing coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-2.

“The available COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be remarkably effective in protecting against serious illness and death,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, MD. “These new awards are designed to look ahead and prepare for the next generation of pandemic coronaviruses. potential.”

The new awards are funded by the NIAID’s Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation through the Emergency Awards Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) on Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development Program Projects. The notice was issued in November 2020 while many SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were still in development as a critical need remained for prophylactic vaccines that provide broad protective immunity against other coronaviruses, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus ( MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV).

The awards aim to fund multidisciplinary teams at each institution to conduct research aimed at integrating knowledge of coronavirus virology and immunology, design of immunogens and innovative vaccine and adjuvant platforms and technologies for discovery, design and developing vaccine candidates against coronavirus that provide broad protective immunity against multiple coronavirus strains. Specific programs will address the diversity of the coronavirus and its infectious potential in humans, include innovative immunogen design and vaccine platforms, and approaches to elicit potent and durable pan-coronavirus immunity, and evaluate vaccine candidates in preclinical models. Winners are expected to respond flexibly to emerging knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 immune responses and infection and to consider new information as vaccine candidates are developed. Additional awards are expected to be presented under the NOSI in 2022 to support pan-coronavirus vaccine research at more institutions.

The new awards build on NIAID’s $1.2 billion investment in coronavirus vaccine research since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, including multiple projects in pan-coronavirus vaccine research in NIAID’s inpatient and outpatient programs.

A major goal of the initiative is to develop multivalent vaccine platforms and strategies suitable for use in vulnerable populations and to understand vaccine-induced responses and efficacy related to an individual’s age or gender.

The following prizes have been awarded:

University of Wisconsin, Madison
Project Title: PanCorVac (Centre for the Development of Pan-Coronavirus Vaccines)
Award: 1 P01AI165077-01

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Project title: Discovering sustainable immunity to pan-coronavirus
Award: 1 P01AI165072-01

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Project title: Design and development of a pan beta coronavirus vaccine
Award: 1 P01AI158571-01A1

NIAID conducts and supports research – at NIH, in the United States and worldwide – to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases and to develop better tools to prevent, diagnose and treat these diseases.