Coronavirus Australia: Aussie vaccine generates immunity stronger than in recovered patients

An experimental Australian vaccine has generated immunity levels exceeding those recorded in people who have recovered.

Science labs across Queensland are busy testing possible coronavirus vaccines. Picture: Supplied.

An experimental Australian vaccine for COVID-19 has generated immunity levels in preclinical trials exceeding those recorded in people who have recovered from the disease.

The findings released Wednesday entrench the molecular clamp technology developed by scientists at the University of Queensland as among the most promising in the world to combat coronavirus.

After being tested on animals in the lab, the prototype drug was shown to generate high levels of antibodies against the virus.

“We were particularly pleased that the strength of the antibody response was even better than those observed in samples from COVID-19 recovered patients,” project co-leader Paul Young said.

The team has repurposed a vaccine platform that had already proved to be highly effective against seasonal influenza and SARS, a coronavirus closely related to COVID-19.

Kanta Subbarao of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, which is assessing the candidate vaccine in partnership with UQ, said the antibody response was capable of neutralising infection in the live virus in cell culture.

“This is a very important finding because similar immune responses from SARS vaccines in animal models were shown to lead to protection from infection,” Professor Subbarao said.

The molecular clamp technology ingeniously targets spike proteins that coat the surface of the coronavirus to launch the body’s defence system against the potentially lethal pathogen.

The scientific collaboration extends to the Netherlands where specialist biotech company Viroclinics Xplore is finetuning preclinical work on the vaccine.

Keith Chappell, another joint project leader at UQ, told The Australian last month that the team was confident the vaccine would prove effective against coronavirus.

“In terms of getting a vaccine that we think will work, we think we are already there,” he said.

Dr Chappell said on Wednesday the decision had been taken early to generate “robust” preclinical and safety data before testing the drug on humans. Those results should be in by June.

“Viroclinics Xplore is investigating in more detail the vaccine’s ability to protect from direct challenge by the live virus in multiple animal models, and without this partnership this just wouldn’t have been possible in this time frame with the capabilities we have here in Australia,” Dr Chappell said.

While there were no guarantees of success, program director Trent Munro said the support the team had received allowed the work to advance at an “unprecedented” pace. This included funding from international not-for-profit the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and co-operation with multinational group Cytiva on potential vaccine manufacturing.

“When you start combining clinical readiness with scale-up manufacturing, the costs quickly escalate and our primary goal here was to try and break down the financial constraints as much as we could,” Professor Munro said.

Professor Young said the preclinical results were a great relief given the “tremendous faith” that had been placed in the molecular clamp technology.