Another Vaccine Type

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Anchor lead: Protein based vaccines are also being studied for Covid-19, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Even as several vaccine types are being rolled out against Covid-19, additional types remain in clinical trials and seem poised for wider use. Andrew Pekosz, a vaccine expert at Johns Hopkins, says one of these types is often referred to as protein-based.

Pekosz: Protein based vaccines, sometimes they’re called subunit vaccine, inactivated vaccines, these are the more tried and true approach that has worked since the days of polio vaccines. This is where you take the whole virus and treat it with compounds that make it no longer infectious. Subunit vaccines express just one or two of the proteins and then purify them and then give those. Protein based vaccines make some antibody responses but it doesn’t induce as strong and probably not as long of an immune response.  :32

Pekosz notes that all vaccine types have both advantages and disadvantages, so having choices especially for different populations of people, will help control the infection. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.