Home ‹ Coronaviruses ‹ [Vectored vaccines] Vectored vaccines
Coronaviruses roadmap:
Vaccines

Research roadmap for coronavirus vaccine development

Download 202402 Draft Coronavirus Vaccine research roadmap Final

7

Vectored vaccines

visit roadmap

Dependencies

Next steps

Vectored vaccines

Research Question

  • To develop safe and effective vectored vaccines for coronaviruses in pets, livestock, and wildlife

Research Gaps and Challenges

  • Vector safety and stability: Ensuring that vaccine vectors are safe, nonpathogenic, and stable in diverse animal species
  • Pre-existing immunity to viral vectors: Pre-existing immunity to viral
    vectors (like adenoviruses or measles viruses) in animals can reduce
    the efficacy of vectored vaccines
  • Efficient vaccine delivery to wildlife: Delivering vaccines to large
    populations of livestock or free-ranging wildlife is logistically
    challenging
  • Cross-species transmission: The risk of vaccine vectors spreading from
    vaccinated animals to non-target species, including humans, poses a
    safety risk
  • Cost and scalability: The cost of producing vectored vaccines and
    scaling them for large populations, especially in wildlife or low resource livestock farming environments, can be prohibitive
  • Understanding host-specific immunity: The immune systems of pets,
    livestock, and wild animals, vary significantly. A vaccine vector that
    works well in one species might not elicit the same immune response
    in another
  • Ecological and evolutionary impacts in wildlife: The mass vaccination
    of wildlife with vectored vaccines may have unforeseen ecological
    consequences, such as altering predator-prey dynamics or influencing
    viral evolution in non-target species

Solution Routes

  • Determine the most suitable vectors
  • Develop next-generation vector platforms, such as novel or less
    common viral vectors that avoid pre-existing immunity
  • New approaches are needed for vaccine/ immunogen design to
    achieve robust protection
  • Engineer vectors to be more thermostable, enabling easier storage and
    transport for use in remote or resource-poor environments
  • Educational campaigns about new vaccine strategies and platforms

Dependencies

  • Funding: Increased funding is needed for comparative immunology
    studies across species, particularly wild animals
  • Immune system response to infection: Detailed research into how
    different species’ immune systems respond to coronavirus infection
    and vaccination is required. This includes understanding differences in
    innate, mucosal, and adaptive immune responses
  • Route of delivery: Evaluate alternate routes of vaccine delivery
    (intranasal, oral, topical)
  • Assay techniques and endpoints: Interlaboratory variability in assay techniques and assay endpoints limits comparison among measurements of immunogenicity. Standardized and harmonised assays and protocols are required
  • Animal models: Establishment of reliable animal models for studying coronavirus infections in pets, livestock, and wildlife for preclinical vaccine testing

State Of the Art

Projects

What activities are planned or underway?

Differential susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2 in animals : Evidence of ACE2 host receptor distribution in companion animals, livestock and wildlife by immunohistochemical characterisation

Planned Completion date 26/07/2021

Participating Country(s):

NetherlandsIconNetherlands

Veterinary Biocontained facility Network for excellence in animal infectiology research and experimentation

Planned Completion date 28/02/2023

Participating Country(s):

EuropeIconEurope