UC Irvine scientists are working on developing a vaccine that would attack all strains of COVID-19 as well as a potential breakthrough that would solve many of the problems related to distributing the medicine, a UCI professor on the project said Thursday.
Lbachir BenMohamed, a UCI School of Medicine professor, said his team is developing what they envision will be a vaccine that could work on all strains in the SARS-CoV-2 family.
The UCI vaccine would be a “backup” to the vaccines used now and anticipated to be approved shortly, BenMohamed said. “Our vaccine is not only focused on spike protein,” to provoke an immune response, like Pfizer's and Moderna's, the professor said. There are two dozen other proteins that can prompt an immune response, he said.
“Right now we are doing clinical studies,” he said as the scientists prepare to monitor how the vaccines work on lab mice with that work expected to be done by this summer.