A new Covid-19 vaccine being tested in clinical trials in Brazil, Mexico, and Thailand … could change the way the world fights pandemic, according to the NY Times.
NDV-HXP-S Vaccine – “Something that changes the game”
NDV-HXP-S is the first vaccine in clinical trials to use a new molecular design that is expected to produce more antibodies than current vaccines. With that, new vaccines could be made much easier than current vaccines. 
Low- and middle-income countries can either produce the NVD-HXP-S vaccine on their own or buy it back at low cost from neighboring countries. Photo: NY Times Existing vaccines from companies such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson must be made in specialized factories using ingredients that are difficult to buy. Meanwhile, the new vaccine can be produced from eggs. According to the NY Times, eggs are the raw material that produces billions of doses of flu vaccine each year in factories around the world. If the NDV-HXP-S vaccine is proven to be safe and effective, influenza vaccine manufacturers are capable of producing more than one billion doses of the vaccine each year. Low- and middle-income countries that are currently having trouble buying vaccines from richer countries can make NDV-HXP-S vaccines themselves or buy them at low cost from neighboring countries . “That was amazing. This is going to be the game changer, ”said Andrea Taylor, assistant director of the Center for Global Health Innovation at Duke University (USA). First, clinical trials have to determine that NDV-HXP-S is indeed effective in humans. The first phase of clinical trials will end in July, and the final phase will take a few months. However, animal trials have raised hope about the prospects of the new vaccine. The key to the Covid-19 vaccine The Covid-19 vaccine works by activating a natural immune mechanism in the human body. SARS-CoV-2 virus has a round shape and many spines surrounding the surface. These spikes are also known as ‘prickly proteins’, and they act as keys to help viruses enter cells. The vaccine will cause the body to produce resistance that helps to block these dendritic cells. However, injecting only mutant proteins into the body is not the best way to make vaccines because mutant proteins sometimes assume the wrong shape and prompt the immune system to produce the wrong antibodies. This happened long before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. In 2015, another coronavirus appeared to cause Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Jason McLellan, a biologist at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, and colleagues have begun building a MERS vaccine. Researchers want to use mutant protein surges as a target, but they have to take into account the fact that mutant protein is a shape-altering substance. When the protein is about to fuse with a cell, it changes from a tulip-like shape to a javelin-like shape. McLellan and colleagues have discovered a way to keep proteins locked in a tulip-like shape is to change 2 of the more than 1,000 building blocks in the protein into a compound called proline. The protein spike to the two new proline molecules is more likely to assume tulip shape called 2P. The researchers injected the 2P mutation into mice and found that the animal could easily fend off the MERS-CoV infection. Scientists have published research on this mutant protein boost, but received little public attention. By the end of 2019, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has appeared and spread around the world. McLellan and his colleagues got into action, designing the 2P mutant for SARS-CoV-2. Within days, Moderna used that information to make the Covid-19 vaccine. Other companies quickly followed suit, applying the 2P mutation to Covid-19 vaccine makers and starting clinical trials. All three vaccines licensed so far in the US, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech, use 2P. Other vaccine manufacturers are also using 2P in vaccine trials. Novavax has had strong results with 2P mutant hemp protein increases in clinical trials and is expected to apply to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an emergency license within a few weeks. next. Eggs – the simple ingredient that makes up the vaccine The first wave of Covid-19 vaccine development required the use of specialized and expensive materials for its fabrication. Moderna’s RNA-based vaccines, for example, require genetic building blocks called nucleotides as well as fatty acids. These ingredients make up a vaccine produced in purpose-specific construction factories. Meanwhile, the production of the flu vaccine is based on just one study. Many countries have huge factories to produce low-cost flu vaccines, made up of eggs. The team at the PATH Center for Vaccine Innovation and Access wondered if scientists could create a cheap Covid-19 vaccine grown in chicken eggs. In this way, a vaccine factory for the flu can also produce Covid-19 vaccine. In New York (USA), a team of scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai already knew how to create such a vaccine using a bird virus called the harmless Newcastle virus. people. For years, scientists have been studying the Newcastle disease virus to create vaccines for a wide range of diseases. To develop the Ebola vaccine, for example, researchers added an Ebola gene to the unique Newcastle virus genome. Then, the scientists put the genetically modified virus into eggs, because this is a virus that causes disease in poultry, it multiplies rapidly in the eggs. Researchers have found that the Newcastle virus is prevented by Ebola proteins. Researchers at Mount Sinai have found that the NDV-HXP-S vaccine can protect mice well from disease. “I can say, this vaccine can protect all mice against the virus SARS-CoV-2. However, many people still do not understand the effects of this vaccine on humans, “said Peter Palese, lead researcher said. According to the NY Times, one egg can make 5-10 doses of the NDV-HXP-S vaccine, compared with just 1-2 doses of the flu vaccine. “We are very excited about this, because this could be a way of making a vaccine at low cost,” said Peter Palese. For some countries, the prospect of self-production of Covid-19 vaccine is highly desirable. However, Madhavi Sunder, an intellectual property expert at the Georgetown Law School, warns that the NDV-HXP-S vaccine will not help countries like Brazil get out of pandemic immediately when they are facing the tide. New Covid-19 translation wave. “We’re not talking about billions of doses of vaccine production. Instead, this strategy will be important for long-term vaccine production, not only for the Covid-19 epidemic but also for other possible pandemics in the future, ”Madhavi Sunder said.
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