The Development and Evaluation of Pan-Coronavirus Vaccines

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Overall Summary Given the historical outbreaks of coronaviruses, coupled with the recent emergence of SARS- CoV-2 and the destabilizing consequence of COVID-19 on global health and economy, there is an urgent and critical need to develop new vaccines capable of broad protection against existing and future Sarbecoviruses and Merbecoviruses. This P01 program project (PPG) addresses the hypothesis that a combination of evolutionarily-designed and optimized B and T cell antigens can confer broad and protective immunity against Sarbecoviruses and Merbecoviruses that currently exist or could emerge from zoonotic reservoirs. The PPG integrates the work of eleven leading laboratories with records of collaboration that have expertise in coronavirus biology, viral pathogenesis, B and T cell immunity, vaccine development, animal challenge studies, structural biology, antibody structure and function, antigen design, and evolutionary analysis of viruses. All Projects and Cores plan interactive studies with the focused goal of designing optimized B and T cell antigens for incorporation in adenoviral (ChAd) and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) vectors to create mucosal and systemic vaccines that protect against infection and disease caused by a range of coronaviruses of potential concern. The PPG is served by a central Animal Challenge Core that performs vaccination and infection experiments in mice and hamsters and a central Administrative Core that streamlines data management and sharing, provides computational analysis for down-selection and scientific decision-making, and facilitates communication. Our proposal and antigen design program serves as a blueprint for possible product development with ChAd vaccines, VSV-based vaccines, or even with other platforms (e.g., mRNA vaccines, nanoparticles, etc.) not directly evaluated here. By the conclusion of our PPG, we envision generating at least one and likely multiple viral- vectored vaccine platforms that induce broad spectrum immunity to multiple coronaviruses of concern including human and zoonotic Sarbecoviruses and Merbecoviruses that could emerge in the future.