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.
A critical need remains for prophylactic vaccines offering broad protective immunity against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
The U.S. federal government announced funding this week to multidisciplinary teams to conduct research focused on incorporating understanding of coronavirus virology and immunology, immunogen design, and innovative vaccine and adjuvant platforms and technologies to discover, design, and develop pan-coronavirus vaccine candidates that provide broad protective immunity to multiple coronavirus strains.
The following awards have been issued:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Project Title: PanCorVac (Center for Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development)
Grant: 1 P01AI165077-01
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
roject Title: Discovering Durable Pan-Coronavirus Immunity
Grant: 1 P01AI165072-01
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Project Title: Design and Development of a Pan-Betacoronavirus Vaccine
Grant: 1 P01AI158571-01A1
The awards are will address coronavirus diversity and 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.
The awardees are expected to be flexible in the response to emerging knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 immune responses and infection and factor in new information as vaccines candidates are developed.
The new awards total approximately $36.3 million and are funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases through the Emergency Awards Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) on Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development Program Projects. Additional awards are expected from this NOSI, according to NIAID.
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