Viruses like SARS-CoV-2 use sugar molecules to hide from the immune system, but scientists at Scripps Research have designed a universal coronavirus vaccine that strips these sugars and exposes a stable, rarely mutating part of the spike protein.
This approach triggered strong immune responses in animal studies and showed promise in neutralizing multiple coronaviruses, including those causing COVID-19, MERS, and even the common cold.
A Sweet Shield: How Viruses Use Sugars to Hide
Viruses, including those that cause COVID-19, use sugar molecules on their surfaces to hide from the immune system, much like a protective coating. Now, researchers have developed a universal coronavirus vaccine that targets both the viruses and the sugars they use to avoid detection. In animal studies, the vaccine removed these sugar molecules from a stable region of the coronavirus spike protein, helping the immune system produce strong and effective antibodies to neutralize the virus.
Chi-Huey Wong, a chemistry professor at Scripps Research, is presenting his team’s findings at the ACS Spring 2025 Digital Meeting, hosted by the American Chemical Society.
One Shot, Many Protections
Wong explains that the goal is to create a single vaccine that protects against multiple coronaviruses, potentially reducing the need for frequent boosters. A Phase I clinical trial, led by Rock Biotherapeutics, has already completed enrollment and dosing. The results of this trial will also be highlighted in Wong’s presentation.
“For a lot of vaccines, like smallpox and tetanus, we only have to be immunized once,” Wong says. “But we have to take a flu shot every year.” He adds that the high rate of mutation seen in the SARS-CoV-2 virus — specifically, the receptor binding domain on the virus’ spike protein — has led to an unprecedented number of COVID-19 vaccine updates.
Targeting the Virus’ Low-Mutation Core
The low-mutation region that Wong’s team chose to target for the new vaccine is within the stalk region of the virus’ spike protein. However, this stalk is coated with chains of sugar molecules called glycans from the host’s cells. And the sugar coating keeps antibodies from recognizing, and therefore inactivating, the virus.
So, the researchers devised a “low-sugar” vaccine that removes the protective glycans through enzymatic digestion and creates antibodies that specifically target the low-mutation stalk region of the virus’ spike protein, should the actual virus enter the body.
Animal Tests Show Broad Protection
In animal studies with hamsters and mice, the universal vaccine created more diverse antibodies with higher titers (concentrations in the blood, where immune system cells travel throughout the body) compared to individual vaccines against variants of SARS-CoV, as well as MERS-CoV, the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome. This improved and broadened the vaccine’s protection. Wong says the team’s new vaccine could also provide protection against coronaviruses that cause influenza and the common cold.
Cancer Vaccines May Be Next
In addition to vaccines for viral infections, Wong’s team is using the technique to develop vaccines for the treatment of various cancers. They recently published two studies on glycan targets on cancer cells and enzymes linked to the synthesis of glycans on cancer cells in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Meeting: ACS Spring 2025
Title
Development of low-sugar universal vaccines and glycoengineered antibodies with improved Fc-mediated killing
Abstract
Glycosylation is an important reaction used to modulate the structure and function of biomolecules in living organisms. Most human viruses, for example, depend on the host glycosylation machinery to create a sugar coat on the virus to complete their life cycle. We found that the main immunogens of influenza and COVID viruses are highly glycosylated, particularly in the conserved epitopes, to facilitate infection and escape from immune response. We also found that deletion of the sugar coat to expose the highly conserved epitopes elicited broadly protective antibody and T cell responses against the virus and different variants. In addition, the antibodies induced by such low-sugar vaccines are more diverse with higher titers against the immunogen, especially the highly conserved epitopes, thus broadening the scope of protection. Furthermore, the Fc-glycans on the antibody can be engineered to improve antibody-mediated killing. This lecture will present our recent development of broadly protective low-sugar vaccines and glycoengineered antibodies with improved Fc-mediated killing.
This research was funded by Academia Sinica.
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15 Comments
No one trusts vaccines – nor, importantly, the people who push them.
Except people with actual knowledge of virology, immunology, and public health. Those folks are well aware of the millions of lives saved by vaccine and the trivial numbers who suffer side effects that are actually caused by vaccinations.
But why listen to people who actually know what they’re talking about when you can listen to liars and morons spewing nonsense?
Operative word: could. Who wants to be a guinea pig? Line forms to the left.
I wouldn’t want to be a guinea pig. That’s why when the COVID-19 vaccines came out, I studied them in great detail. I also studied the virus itself in great detail down to each individual protein and reviewed decades worth of work leading up to the vaccine. I was not going to be a guinea pig.
It turned out that those who chose not to get vaccinated but instead decided to be guinea pigs willing to see what happens when they get a virus didn’t do so well. Not only did it kill well over a million Americans, those who didn’t die are having lifelong health problems. Over 20% have permanent heart or lung damage. People with long COVID have no idea whether or not they will ever recover. Rather then becoming a guinea pig, I got vaccinated.
Without 100,00 kids that their parents enrolled to test the Salk Polio Vaccine – you probably would NOT be here. Eugenics pseudo-science says that might be good as the antivaxer’s children would die and cull stupid from the gene pool
Gee I guess it’s a good thing we all TRUST Scientists, Virologists, Epidemiologists and the Pharmacy industry…..
oh… wait…
No. we don’t.
Science used to be about discovering new knowledge and expanding our understanding of the Universe. Now, more often than not, it’s about promoting some Political or Ideological cause.
We trust science—maybe you don’t? Science doesn’t care about politics or convenience; it deals in facts. That’s exactly why it’s a problem for Republicans who prefer to make things up. These new vaccines represent cutting-edge advancements in protecting humanity from pathogens. It’s an exciting time for medical science, and hopefully, the human trials confirm their safety and effectiveness.
It is a fact that the Covid vaccine reduced the risk of death to 1/6 that faced by the unvaccinated. And it saved millions of lives.
That’s not a fact. Far from it. Well over a million Americans died from COVID-19. If your assertion were correct, then there would have been over 160,000 deaths from the vaccine. There aren’t any directly attributed to the vaccine.
The biggest complaints about the so-called harm from the virus tend to be about things like pericarditis and myocarditis. But the reality is that those who got either of them after having been vaccinated didn’t get them from the contents of the vaccine itself, but from an autoimmune response that was not only 11 times more common in people who got the disease than in people who got the vaccine, it’s almost definite that the people who had that response after the vaccine would have had it after getting the disease because the virus delivers the same protein that’s in the vaccine.
You dont know what you’re talking about.
Not only has the mRNA shot injured and killed tens of thousands of people…but the absurd hospital protocols directly contributed to the deaths of even more.
Durrrrr, you ignorantly spewed, “the virus delivers the same protein that’s in the vaccine.”
You’re either being disingenuous or you’re unaware. Which is it??
There are many differences…first and foremost the delivery mechanism regarding the spike protein is a huge difference. The spike protein in the harmful mRNA platform is encased in a lipid nanoparticle shell which can end up in all major organs including crossing the blood-brain barrier. The shot is a blueprint which continually creates spike–for which there is no off-switch. Spike from the shot can remain in humans for years …
I’m thankful that I protected my family and avoided what amounts to (at best) a terrible product and (at worst) a bioweapon foisted upon a scared, propagandized people.
What are you smoking, JD? Less than 100 people in the US have died from adverse effects of the Covid vaccination. Or do I require a subscription to a conspiracy website to find out the REAL truth?
Why would you listen to people who’ve devoted their lives to virology, immunology, and public health when you can listen to lying morons instead, right?
Why would you listen to people who’ve devoted their lives to virology, immunology, and public health when you can listen to lying morons instead, right?
If things like vaccines, climate change, and universal healthcare were truly political issues instead of health or scientific issues, then there would be conservatives throughout the world opposing them. In reality, there’s nothing conservative about that. Rejecting science is not conservative.
Other countries aside from the US have conservatives. You don’t hear people from far right parties in England, France, Germany or any other country advocate getting rid of universal healthcare, because it’s a mainstream issue, not a left wing issue. The far right in other countries doesn’t dispute climate change either, nor do they reject the science behind vaccines. They also don’t rally against things that use electricity, such as cars, or oppose things that benefit the environment or mitigate pollution.
These things have nothing to do with politics. It just so happens that a political party in the US took on some issues that were not political, made them political and acted as if only liberals believe otherwise. Liberals in the US don’t take a left wing view on these things. They merely go along with the rest of the world. They abandoned their own party’s beliefs. It was Nixon who founded the EPA, and who was President when the US had its first Earth Day. He was hardly a liberal.
I’ll take it! Where’s the line forming? 🙂 Thank You, Scientists!!!!!