Experts from Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and University of Nottingham (UoN) will be contributing in the global effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
The universities will be helping Scancell Holdings PLC, a company that focuses on developing innovative immunotherapies for cancer, in their new project on trying to adapt their existing cancer vaccine to develop one for coronavirus.
Virologists from The University of Nottingham’s Centre for Research on Global Virus Infections have recognised parts of the virus that they hope to use to create a safe and effective vaccine.
The new vaccine will target two of the virus’s proteins, the nucleocapsid protein and the surface spike protein. The nucleocapsid makes up most of the cell, whereas the surface protein allows the virus to enter a cell, and so becomes the natural target.
By focusing on these two proteins, the vaccine could help protect people from COVID-19 now, but it may also protect people against different strains of the coronavirus that may appear in the future.
The vaccine will be screened at Nottingham Trent University’s John van Geest Cancer Research Centre, before being tested on healthy volunteers. As DNA vaccines are safe and cost-effective, they are also able to be manufactured quickly and on a large scale.
The project will be led by Professor Lindy Durrant, who is the Chief Scientific Officer and Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy at UON. She will be collaborating with Professor Jonathan Ball from NTU, alongside other colleagues from both universities.
Professor Nigel Wright, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at NTU, said both NTU and the John van Geest Cancer Research Centre “are delighted to support Scancell’s endeavours to develop an effective vaccine for COVID-19.
He said: “These are clearly challenging times and significant progress in the development of new approaches for protecting against this virus will only be possible by collaborations such as these.”
By Laycie Beck
Feature photo credit: Pixabay.