Live data from Hacker News

Nasal vaccine against Covid-19 prevents infection in mice

medicine.wustl.edu

1–10 of 30 posts

Re: Nasal vaccine against Covid-19 prevents infection in mice

#4
This is really interesting. Obviously evidence in mice is a long way away from demonstrated safety & efficacy in humans but I'll be curious to see where this one goes. If non-healthcare-professionals could be trained to administer a nasal vaccine (the way many non-hcps are able to carry and administer nasal naloxone in case of opiate overdose), it seems like it might potentially make vaccine adoption faster or more widespread.

Re: Nasal vaccine against Covid-19 prevents infection in mice

#6

This is really interesting. Obviously evidence in mice is a long way away from demonstrated safety & efficacy in humans but I'll be curious to see where this one goes. If non-healthcare-professionals could be trained to administer a nasal vaccine (the way many non-hcps are able to carry and administer nasal naloxone in case of opiate overdose), it seems like it might potentially make vaccine adoption faster or more w…

They evaluated "the protective activity of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine encoding a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) in challenge studies with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and mice expressing the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor" https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31068-0

Re: Nasal vaccine against Covid-19 prevents infection in mice

#7

I'm very interesting if we switched to using nasal vaccines, would it help soothe out the rabid anti-vaxxers? A large part of the movement IMO stems from the fact that subconsciously, humans tend to associate long sharp needles = pain = bad

Polio is available as an oral vaccine that used to be widespread in the west. I still remember demanding a sugarcube with every oral medication after getting one for the polio vaccination :)

That doesn't seem to stop anti-vaxxers: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-04/anti-v...

Re: Nasal vaccine against Covid-19 prevents infection in mice

#8

This is really interesting. Obviously evidence in mice is a long way away from demonstrated safety & efficacy in humans but I'll be curious to see where this one goes. If non-healthcare-professionals could be trained to administer a nasal vaccine (the way many non-hcps are able to carry and administer nasal naloxone in case of opiate overdose), it seems like it might potentially make vaccine adoption faster or more w…

They evaluated "the protective activity of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine encoding a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) in challenge studies with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and mice expressing the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor" https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31068-0

what the hell? that is quite odd, considering they have quotes from a professor at the university in the press release talking about mice as well... and it's not as though the press release is old or anything. shrug

Re: Nasal vaccine against Covid-19 prevents infection in mice

#9

This is really interesting. Obviously evidence in mice is a long way away from demonstrated safety & efficacy in humans but I'll be curious to see where this one goes. If non-healthcare-professionals could be trained to administer a nasal vaccine (the way many non-hcps are able to carry and administer nasal naloxone in case of opiate overdose), it seems like it might potentially make vaccine adoption faster or more w…

They evaluated "the protective activity of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine encoding a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) in challenge studies with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and mice expressing the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor" https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31068-0

Just to clarify — the vaccine uses as its backbone a type of adenovirus that typically infects chimpanzees, modified by the addition of pieces from SARS-CoV-2, but the experiments testing efficacy are performed in mice (specifically, a type of mice engineered to express humanized ACE2).

This vaccine has not been tested in chimpanzees (and actually such experiments would probably be a challenge, since they may have existing immunity to the backbone adenovirus).

(edit: parent comment initially mentioned experiments in chimpanzees rather than mice)

Re: Nasal vaccine against Covid-19 prevents infection in mice

#10
This article on mucosal immunity provides helpful context for intranasal vaccines:

> Many microbes, including the coronavirus, enter the body through the mucosa — wet, squishy tissues that line the nose, mouth, lungs and digestive tract — triggering a unique immune response from cells and molecules there. Intramuscular vaccines generally do a poor job of eliciting this mucosal response, and must instead rely on immune cells mobilized from elsewhere in the body flocking to the site of infection.

> Given the potency and rapid spread of the coronavirus, some say it makes sense to develop vaccines for the airway as well as the more standard jabs. “Knowing how potent mucosal responses can be against a viral pathogen, it would be ideal to be thinking about mucosal vaccines,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/health/coronavirus-nasal-...

And here’s one of the first studies using a mouse model (AFAIK) for SARS-CoV-2 if you want to see how that works: https://rupress.org/jem/article/217/12/e20201241/151999/Mous...

Post reply on HN