Top NIH scientists call for global collaboration in pursuit of universal coronavirus vaccine

With a growing body of evidence that novel coronaviruses will continue to infect animals to afflict humans anew, top scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have called for collaboration in pursuit of a universal coronavirus vaccine.

Drs. Anthony Fauci, Jeffery Taubenberger, and David Morens of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in a new commentary in The New England Journal of Medicine last week, argued that coronaviruses are here to stay and to make new outbreaks. These outbreaks will likely pose additional pandemic threats to humans, meaning that measures must be taken to counter them. This, in their view, should take three forms:

1. Characterize the range of coronavirus genetic diversity in various animal species
2. Improve understanding of coronavirus disease pathogenesis in lab animal models and people
3. Apply that understanding to the development of long-lasting, broadly protective coronavirus vaccines

NIAID conducts and supports research worldwide to study the origins of infectious and immune-mediated diseases and thereby develop ways of preventing, diagnosing, and treating those illnesses. Fauci is the Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden, leading the U.S. COVID-19 response effort. 

Fauci, and his colleagues, have called for international studies to sample coronaviruses from bats and other animals as a means of better understanding the whole picture of existing and emerging coronaviruses. With that information in hand, they believe that researchers could learn early about what coronaviruses may pose as outbreak threats to humans. Further, they called for carefully controlled human challenge trials, which would expose volunteers to these coronaviruses, so scientists could better understand the processes by which coronaviruses operate and aid future vaccine design. 

According to the authors, the latter could be critical, given that scientists still do not know how, or even whether, permanent immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is achieved. This fact means that coronavirus technology needs to be accelerated, ultimately culminating in a universal vaccine with durable protection from most or all coronaviruses for individuals of all ages and communities.