A second-generation Covid-19 vaccine developed by scientists at the University of Queensland in Australia - called Clamp2 - has begun human trials, more than two years after the original technology was scrapped due to patients testing falsely positive for HIV.
Scientists at the University of Queensland have redesigned the molecular clamp technology and are looking for 70 healthy volunteers aged 18-50 to test its effectiveness as a Covid-19 vaccine against the approved Novavax vaccine. If successful, the researchers say, it could potentially be used to protect people in future pandemics and to prevent current viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Project leader Professor Keith Chappell said the scientists’ main aim was not to bring another Covid-19 vaccine to market, as existing vaccines work very well and keep many people out of hospital. However, Mr Chappell said this would not be the last time the world faced a pandemic, so his team wanted to ensure doses were available as quickly as possible and were safe enough to protect Australians and people around the world. “If we can show that this technology is safe and effective, we can speed it up and get vaccines to people who need them in an emergency,” he said. Professor Chappell expressed confidence in the potential of Clamp2 and hoped that this vaccine technology would protect people.
The original clamp technology contained two pieces of proteins found in HIV, acting like a chemical bulldog clip, holding a digital version of the spike protein found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus that causes Covid-19. It works by allowing the immune system to recognise – and attack – the spike protein, generating protective antibodies. The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein itself is unstable. It needs to be locked into shape to ensure the vaccine generates a strong immune response. However, the molecular clamp used in the original vaccine developed by University of Queensland scientists resulted in false positive HIV tests, which led to the vaccine being scrapped altogether.
Professor Chappell said the HIV protein fragments were replaced with a “small chain of amino acids with similar properties” in Clamp2. Now scientists have to start from scratch to identify something with the right properties to become a molecular clamp, and they have to completely redefine how to make this vaccine because they are using a specific purification method to purify the original molecular clamp. Professor Chappell said vaccines using Clamp2 technology would have many advantages over existing technology because they would be cheaper, could reach resource-limited parts of the world, and would also be stable enough to be shipped around the world without having to be frozen at extremely low temperatures. But the biggest advantage in preparing for pandemics, he said, is that it could be quickly scaled up into millions and millions of doses. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is now providing up to AUD 8.5 million to support further development of the Clamp2 vaccine technology.
VNA
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