Advances in COVID-19 vaccinology: development of new vaccine antigens with potential to mitigate the immunological escape of SARS-CoV-2

• Grant number: 23/01153-7
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Luis Carlos de Souza Ferreira
• Grantee: Luis Carlos de Souza Ferreira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Jaime Henrique Amorim Santos

Abstract

More than three years after COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) was triggered, with more than 770 million human cases and almost 7 million deaths, in May this year, the World Health Organization declared the end of this disease as a public health emergency. However, the end of the state of emergency does not imply the end of the pandemic: SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the etiological agent of COVID-19, although in smaller proportions, continues to mutate, causing infections and deaths in several countries that have high population vaccination coverage. Therefore, it is necessary to develop studies that allow monitoring the population's vaccine immune response against viral variants, viral evolution and identifying mutations that aid in immune escape to develop new vaccine antigens capable of controlling new cases of the disease. The objective of this project is to develop new vaccine antigens to control COVID-19 based on the understanding of the immunity conferred by current vaccines against genetic mutations of SARS-CoV-2. This goal should be achieved through a combination of some methodological approaches: i) an observational clinical study, to be carried out in the population of the municipality of Barreiras, Bahia, where the longevity and quality of immunological responses induced by current vaccination policies will be evaluated; ii) a computational study to identify promising antigens that could improve the immune response induced by vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 in the scenario of genetic escape mutations and iii) based on information generated in clinical and computational studies, propose and obtain antigens innovative vaccines. The combination of approaches is expected to generate information for the development of vaccine antigens capable to mitigate the immunological scape ascribed to the onset of genetic variants of the COVID-19-associated virus. (AU)