University of Queensland’s COVID-19 Vaccine Demonstrates Strong Antibody Response to Neutralize Coronavirus in Pre-Clinical Testing

The University of Queensland’s {(UQ) Brisbane, Australia} COVID-19 vaccine has demonstrated the ability to raise high levels of antibodies that can neutralize the virus in early pre-clinical testing.

UQ has been tasked by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) to use its vaccine technology to develop a coronavirus vaccine, and has collaborated with the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute) to demonstrate and understand its immune response.

Upon testing the samples, the scientists found high levels of antibodies capable of neutralizing infection by the live virus in cell culture, indicating that that the vaccine worked as expected. These results, along with the collaboration with Viroclinics Xplore in the Netherlands, keep the UQ vaccine’s accelerated timeframe on track. The team had decided early on that ensuring a robust package of pre-clinical and safety data was critical before initiating a clinical trial, and they hoped to have those results in early June.

“We were particularly pleased that the strength of the antibody response was even better than those observed in samples from COVID-19 recovered patients,” said UQ project co-leader Professor Paul Young.

“This is a very important finding because similar immune responses with SARS vaccines in animal models were shown to lead to protection from infection,” said University of Melbourne Professor Kanta Subbarao, from the Doherty Institute.

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