Delivering Pandemic Vaccines in 100 Days — What Will It Take?

Abou-Saleh

et al. 2022

Viruses

There is no doubt that infectious diseases present global impact on the economy, society, health, mental state, and even political aspects, causing a long-lasting dent, and the situation will surely worsen if and when the viral spread becomes out of control, as seen during the still ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Despite the considerable achievements made in viral prevention and treatment, there are still significant challenges that can be overcome through careful understanding of the viral mechanism of action to establish common ground for innovating new preventative and treatment strategies. Viruses can be regarded as devil nanomachines, and one innovative approach to face and stop the spread of viral infections is the development of nanoparticles that can act similar to them as drug/vaccine carriers. Moreover, we can use the properties that different viruses have in designing nanoparticles that reassemble the virus conformational structures but that do not present the detrimental threats to human health that native viruses possess. This review discusses the current preventative strategies (i.e., vaccination) used in facing viral infections and the associated limitations, highlighting the importance of innovating new approaches to face viral infectious diseases and discussing the current nanoapplications in vaccine development and the challenges that still face the nanovaccine field.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Think like a Virus: Toward Improving Nanovaccine Development against SARS-CoV-2

Abou-Saleh

et al. 2022

Viruses

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

“…It is clear, therefore, that new technologies and innovations are needed. 12 CEPI has conducted an assessment of current vaccine platforms to identify the critical paths and timelines from a CMC perspective to generate a first clinical trial material (CTM). Among the platforms, RNA‐based platforms are the fastest, with the potential to produce a first CTM within 30 days of access to the viral genome, given that certain criteria are met.…”

Section: Countermeasures: Vaccines Therapeutics and Rapid Manufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, Dowling described current and future CEPI efforts, dubbed CEPI 2.0. In response to the 100‐Days Mission put forth at the 2021 G7 summit, 11 CEPI has set a goal of reducing the vaccine development timeline to 100 days 12 . Their plan includes developing a library of vaccines for known threats and the use of rapid response platforms that will allow rapid adaptation if related viruses emerge.…”

Section: Keynote Address: Lessons Learned From the Covid‐19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Estimates indicate that currently available technologies can decrease vaccine development timeline to approximately 250 days. It is clear, therefore, that new technologies and innovations are needed 12 . CEPI has conducted an assessment of current vaccine platforms to identify the critical paths and timelines from a CMC perspective to generate a first clinical trial material (CTM).…”

Section: Countermeasures: Vaccines Therapeutics and Rapid Manufacturingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lessons from the pandemic: Responding to emerging zoonotic viral diseases—a Keystone Symposia report

Cable¹,

Fauci

Dowling

et al. 2022

The COVID‐19 pandemic caught the world largely unprepared, including scientific and policy communities. On April 10–13, 2022, researchers across academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations met at the Keystone symposium “Lessons from the Pandemic: Responding to Emerging Zoonotic Viral Diseases” to discuss the successes and challenges of the COVID‐19 pandemic and what lessons can be applied moving forward. Speakers focused on experiences not only from the COVID‐19 pandemic but also from outbreaks of other pathogens, including the Ebola virus, Lassa virus, and Nipah virus. A general consensus was that investments made during the COVID‐19 pandemic in infrastructure, collaborations, laboratory and manufacturing capacity, diagnostics, clinical trial networks, and regulatory enhancements—notably, in low‐to‐middle income countries—must be maintained and strengthened to enable quick, concerted responses to future threats, especially to zoonotic pathogens.

“…There is now growing advocacy for developing schemes able to facilitate extremely rapid (ie, within 100 days) production of vaccines against newly identified pathogens with pandemic potential [38]. Others have advocated for using the genomic sequence of a newly identified viral pathogen with pandemic potential to directly produce a vaccine mRNA encoding the presumed key immunogen based on analogies to known pathogens in the same virus family [39].…”

Section: The Source(s) Of Our Good Fortune In the Rapid Production Of...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemics and the English Language: Concepts Critical for Conversing About COVID-19

Greenspan¹,

Pereda²

2022

PAI

We consider the multiple senses of several key terms that are used to discuss the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and clarify meanings of the corresponding concepts. Topics addressed include: 1) the meaning of immunity to an infectious agent in varying medical and scientific contexts, 2) the scientific factors that influenced the rapid generation and clinical implementation of safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19, 3) the difference between mutational abrogation of reactivity with B- or T-cell antigen receptors (immune escape) versus active interference with host immune mechanisms mediated by gene products encoded within the genome of the infectious agent (immune evasion), 4) the different ways by which the COVID-19 pandemic has “caused” deaths, and 5) briefly, the challenge of precisely defining the term pathogen.