ICAR2020 Abstracts
Development of vaccine antigens and antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 Jason McLellan, PhD University of Texas at Austin, United States of America During this presentation I will discuss my laboratory’s collaborative work understanding the structure and function of coronavirus spike proteins, and how we leveraged this information to design novel vaccine antigens that are in four out of the five leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates. I will also describe how we were able to rapidly determine the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein earlier this year and leverage that information into the design of second generation spikes that are more stable and express better than our initial variants. This work highlights the importance of basic science research prior to pathogen emergence and demonstrates how innovation, platform development and at-risk manufacturing can enable rapid vaccine development without comprising safety. |