UQ vaccine showed promise across COVID-19 variants, new data

The abandoned University of Queensland COVID-19 vaccine showed promise for providing protection across coronavirus variants, new research has found.

The University of Queensland COVID-19 vaccine showed promise as being protective across virus variants before it was abandoned, a new study shows.

Results from the only human trial of the vaccine candidate also found it was safe and produced a strong immune response in 99 per cent of participants who received two doses.

The trial findings, reported in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, coincided with the release of Queensland Health data showing that of the 232 COVID-19 cases diagnosed in the state from January 1-April 5 this year, 84 had a “variant of concern”.

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That included 74 cases of the highly contagious UK variant and 10 of the South African strain. But Queensland Health detected no cases of the Brazilian variant in the first quarter of the year.

UQ vaccine project co-leader Keith Chappell said that in 75 per cent of people who received two shots of the vaccine, based on the university’s unique molecular clamp technology, the immune response was “above the average” seen in recovered COVID patients.

“In 38 per cent, it was more than twice the average for recovered patients,” Associate Professor Chappell said.

Project co-leader of the University of Queensland vaccine project, Associate Professor Keith Chappell.

The UQ researchers said antibody responses suggested the vaccine was “likely to confer protection against divergent strains”.

“This finding is promising given that novel … variants will continue to emerge, which might affect the immunogenicity and efficacy of existing and candidate vaccines,” they wrote in the journal article.

Results of the early human trial in 120 volunteers highlighted the huge lost opportunity when work on the vaccine candidate was terminated after participants in the first human trial returned false test results for HIV.

Bigger trials of the experimental UQ vaccine had to be cancelled and plans by the Morrison Government to purchase more than 50 million doses were abandoned.

The UQ vaccine was based on introducing a fragment of the COVID-19 virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, to the body – in this case, the spike protein found on its surface.

UQ COVID-19 vaccine project leader, Professor Trent Munro

On its own, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is unstable. It needs to be locked into shape to ensure the vaccine produces a robust immune response.

The UQ technology used a molecular “clamp”, made out of two fragments of a protein found in HIV, which effectively acted as a bulldog clip to hold the spike protein together.

Project director Professor Trent Munro said that unfortunately, some vaccine volunteers “registered a low response on some highly sensitive HIV tests”.

Key players in the University of Queensland’s COVID-19 vaccine project with human trial participants. (left to right) Prof Trent Munro, Prof Paul Young, Associate Professor Keith Chappell.

His colleague Prof Paul Young, a joint leader of the vaccine project, said the study strongly validated the molecular clamp technology as a “promising” response strategy for vaccine development.

The team continues to work on alternative clamp constructs to the HIV protein that could be used in future vaccines.

But it may be years before a new UQ vaccine candidate is available.

Prof Young said COVID-19 vaccines already on the market needed to remain Australia’s priority.

Queensland recorded zero new cases of the virus in the past 24 hours. Of the state’s total of 1518 confirmed infections since the pandemic began, only 20 remain active.