The Vaithi Arumugaswami laboratory in the UCLA Department of Pharmacology is dedicated to developing vaccines to protect against various diseases within the Flaviviridae family of viruses—Hepatitis C Virus, Zika Virus, and Dengue Virus. More recent work has focused on understanding the pathogenic mechanism of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Currently, there is no vaccine or therapeutic strategies available to treat COVID-19, the disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Patients must rely on treatment that eases their symptoms without addressing the basic causes of the disease. Researchers in the Arumugaswami lab have generated a novel COVID-19 vaccine platform comprised of a delivery vector and vaccine stabilizer formulation.
The innovative COVID-19 vaccine platform is based on a single-round replication Zika vector previously created by the lab. Portions of the Zika genome coding for structural genes were removed, allowing for insertion of foreign antigens and packaging the vector for in vivo delivery. The Zika viral particles were then stabilized from heat inactivation at higher temperatures by a proprietary polymer, PolyProtek. This technology has been adapted to the SARS-CoV-2 virus by expressing CoV antigens to "spike" proteins on the viral surface, and packaging the vaccine in PolyProtek to extend shelf-life. Animal studies are currently underway, and immunogenicity will be assessed by serum neutralization and T cell assays. Once safety and efficacy profiles are established in preclinical and clinical strategies, the vaccine could be integrated into a vaccine regimen resulting in general coronavirus immunity. Widespread preventative vaccination of the global population and frontline clinical responders will prevent future coronavirus outbreaks and associated economic impact.
Link to Faculty website: https://people.ctsi.ucla.edu/institution/personnel?personnel_id=2061839
Link to relevant publications:
1) Insights into Cross-species Evolution of Novel Human Coronavirus 2019-nCoV and Defining Immune Determinants for Vaccine Development (2020)
2) COVID-19 Vaccine Will Close in on the Spikes
3) Differential Metabolic Reprogramming by Zika Virus Promotes Cell Death in Human versus Mosquito Cells. Cell Metab (2019)