NIAID Issues New Awards To Fund “Pan-Coronavirus” Vaccines – Primary Focus on Potential Pandemic-Causing Viruses
By NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY
AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES (NIAID)
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.
“The available COVID-19 vaccines
have proven to be remarkably effective at protecting against severe disease and
death,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “These new awards are
designed to look ahead and prepare for the next generation of coronaviruses
with pandemic potential.”
The new awards are funded by NIAID’s Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and its Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation through the Emergency Awards Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) on Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine Development Program Projects.
The notice was issued in November 2020 while many
SARS-CoV-2 vaccines were still under development because a critical need
remained for prophylactic vaccines offering broad protective immunity against
other coronaviruses, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus
(MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
The awards are designed to fund multidisciplinary teams at each institution 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.
Specific programs 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. Additional awards are
expected to be issued under the NOSI in 2022 to support pan-coronavirus vaccine
research at more institutions.
The new awards build on the $1.2 billion investment NIAID has made
in coronavirus vaccine research since the COVID-19 pandemic began, including
multiple projects in pan-coronavirus vaccine research in the NIAID intramural
and extramural programs.
A key goal of the initiative is to develop multivalent vaccine
platforms and strategies suitable for use in vulnerable populations and to
understand vaccine-induced responses and efficacy related to a person’s age or
sex.
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
NIAID conducts and supports research— at NIH, throughout the
United States, and worldwide — to study the causes of infectious and
immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing
and treating these illnesses.