UK company Scancell, which specialises in developing cancer vaccines, and several other firms from Europe and the US are already working on variant proof jabs and hope to prove shortly they can produce an effective immune response.
Alongside scientists from the University of Nottingham, Scancell is targeting a protein in the core of the virus called the nucleocapsid or “N” protein, alongside the spike protein. Human trials of their vaccine will begin in the second half of this year, after positive results from testing the jab on mice.
The DNA-based product seems to stimulate a good antibody and T-cell response. Scancell chief medical officer Dr Gillies O’Bryan-Tear, told The Telegraph: “We don’t necessarily claim it will be a pan-coronavirus vaccine, but it has got the potential to be so simply because of where it is targeted.”