New COVID-19 Vaccine Inhales Immunity Exhales Virus

An inhalable vaccine called ‘aerogel’ induces an immune response against COVID-19 in the lungs of mice, according to new research published in the journal Biomacromolecules.

“There are many potential advantages of an inhalable formulation compared to an injectable vaccine,” said Atip Lawanprasert, a graduate student in biomedical engineering and a lead author of the study.

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‘Inhalable COVID-19 vaccines may induce an immune response locally in the lungs before it fully infects the patient and causes symptoms.’

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Inhalable vaccines might be able to help increase the rate of vaccination because so many people are afraid of injections. No matter how high the efficacy of a vaccine is, if people don’t get it, then it’s not useful.

In addition to that those inhalable vaccines can be stable in storage for more time than traditional vaccines.

The current vaccines are not very good at preventing transmission because they allow the virus to replicate in the body, even for a short period, and then transmit to other individuals.

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Whereas an inhalable vaccine would elicit local immunity at the primary site of infection, where SARS-CoV-2 could be rapidly neutralized and eliminated without the inflammatory response characteristic of systemic vaccination.

Previously, researchers had developed and patented a gel-like material, called an ‘aerogel,’ as a vehicle for delivering antimicrobials to the lungs to treat bacterial respiratory infections, particularly tuberculosis.

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When the pandemic started, they decided to develop an inhalable formulation for COVID-19 by combining our aerogel with DNA that encodes the COVID-19 virus proteins.

To test the efficacy of this vaccine, the team immunized mice via an intranasal installation of the vaccine, followed by a booster dose two weeks later.

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Next, they collected serum samples from the animals on days 14 and 28 post-vaccination and booster, respectively. They analyzed these samples for systemic immune responses and found no statistically significant change in antibody levels.

To explore nose, throat, and lung immune responses, the researchers collected samples from immunized mice 30 days after vaccination to assess differences in the total and spike-protein specific lung mucosal IgA antibodies.

They found a significant increase in the total IgA for vaccinated mice but IgA specifically targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was lower than expected for the vaccinated animals.

Inhalable vaccines can also be translated to multiple other viruses, such as flu, so it has the potential to be widely applicable. Researchers plan to continue to research on the use of inhalable vaccines to protect against COVID-19.

Source-Medindia