Scientist’s insight powers new RSV vaccine for infants

【《We Chinese in America》Media Editor Tang Zhao, November 30, 2022】Barney Graham, a former scientist at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was thrilled yesterday when Pfizer announced encouraging results from an experimental vaccine that could protect against a major childhood killer. In a press release, the company said immunizing pregnant women* with its vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) protected their babies from severe disease for 6 months. If the full results of its clinical trial bear out that promise, the vaccine could spare millions of infants worldwide from RSV-related hospitalization, reduce lasting lung damage from the virus, and help prevent some of the estimated 120,000 childhood deaths the viruses cause annually. The Pfizer news represents a personal milestone for Graham because his NIAID team made a fundamental discovery about vaccine design that’s used in its RSV shot, as well as in approved or potential vaccines for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.(Photo Courtesy: news.rice.edu)

Vaccine development for RSV was derailed after a trial of a candidate in 1966 led to two deaths and the hospitalization of 80% of the infants who received the product, which contained an inactivated version of the entire virus. But Graham, who began working on RSV in 1985 when he was a 32-year-old clinician, created a safer, more potent vaccine that only contains the RSV surface protein known as F.

The F protein rearranges its structure when the virus infects and fuses with a cell. Graham, who is now at the Morehouse School of Medicine, led an NIAID team that designed a molecular strategy to lock F into its original, “prefusion” configuration, stimulating the most powerful antibody responses. Graham’s NIAID group made a similar modification to the SARS-CoV-2 surface protein, spike, which was adopted by Moderna, Pfizer, and other companies in their designs of COVID-19 vaccines.

In Pfizer’s trial, which is taking place in 18 countries, 7400 pregnant women received one dose of “RSVpreF” or a placebo shot during their late second or third trimester. Mothers naturally transfer the RSV antibodies stimulated by the vaccine to their fetuses. An independent committee monitoring the data recommended the trial stop enrolling women because the study had met one of two of its primary endpoints, but Pfizer will continue to track their infants, some 7000 so far.

Pfizer will reveal more when it publishes the results, and it plans to file for approval for the vaccine from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before the end of the year.

Both Pfizer and GSK this year have also reported positive results with RSV vaccines given to elderly people, also based on Graham’s innovation. Those data are at various stages of being reviewed by FDA, as well as regulators in Europe and Japan. A recent study of the global impact of RSV infections in older adults estimated it leads to 336,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 in-hospital deaths.

Graham spoke yesterday with Science about the RSV prevention field. In addition to vaccines, a monoclonal antibody, palivizumab, is now on the market to prevent infections in high-risk infants and another, called nirsevimab, is not yet approved but may be even better based on phase 3 trial data. All told, he’s excited at the prospects of helping curb this devastating disease, which is now surging around the world after a lull because of COVID-19 lockdowns and precautions. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

(Source: Science)

This website has a free subscription function, please enter your email address and name (any nickname) in the upper right corner of the page. After subscribing, you can receive timely updates of the website. I hope that new and old readers will actively subscribe, so that we have the opportunity to provide you with better services

Please click: Home (wechineseus.com) for more news and content on this website

Follow The Chinese Media's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/wechineseinus

Follow The Chinese Media's Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/wechineseinamerica/

About the author: Dr. Ronald G. Jan who specializes in Vascular Surgery is a Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of California at Davis School of Medicine. He has been serving as the Director of Paul Hom’s Asian (Free) Clinic since 2005. As a hobby, he holds WSET level 3 certification in wines and has been writing and publishing wine commentaries attracting lots of readers.