Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine works against mutations found in varieties in the UK, South Africa, laboratory study finds

Researchers have rushed to determine whether Covid-19 vaccines and medicines will continue to work against new variants as governments roll out shots they hope schools, businesses and other institutions can reopen.

Pfizer’s findings are in line with other preliminary results reported by several research groups in recent weeks, examining the efficacy of available vaccines against the new variants.

However, the investigation is still preliminary. Pfizer’s study was performed in a laboratory and tested only a subset of mutations found in the variants, but not the variants themselves. The researchers also did not determine whether their results were statistically significant.

Yet these and other results suggest that the impact of the variants on the shots will be ‘relatively modest, which is good news for the vaccines’, said Jason McLellan, a structural biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, who studied how studied coronavirus proteins, said. had interaction with antibodies and was not involved in the Pfizer study.

Pfizer said the “findings do not indicate the need for a new vaccine to address the emerging variant.” However, the company said that he and his partner BioNTech’s BNTX 4.09%

was prepared to respond to a vaccine-resistant version of the virus.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine uses a new technology called messenger RNA, after the molecular couriers of genetic instructions, which enables developers to make faster changes to their vaccines than more traditional techniques. The other vaccine authorized in the US, from biotechnology Moderna Inc.,

also uses mRNA technology.

A recent preliminary study by Moderna, in collaboration with scientists from the US National Institutes of Health, showed that antibodies generated by the vaccine were less effective at binding the mutated ear proteins of the South African variant. The researchers found no difference for the pickle proteins of the British variant. The coronavirus uses its ear proteins, which study its surface, to penetrate and infect cells. The proteins are the main targets of antibodies.

As a precaution, the company said it was developing a boost shot for the South African variant.

The new Pfizer study found that antibodies generated by the vaccine were slightly better at binding the versions of the virus, some of which have mutations in the British variant.

This may be because scientists have tested their British virus-like viruses against a variant that does not have an older but important mutation that increases transmissibility, but makes the virus more susceptible to antibodies, said Dr. McLellan said.

The gold standard would be to test antibodies against the variant itself, he and others said to understand how their unique constellation of mutations can affect the natural immunity or protection against a vaccine.

These studies continue in laboratories around the world.

Pfizer researchers, who worked with scientists at the University of Texas’ medical branch, did not perform tests for statistical significance. This is an important way in which scientists judge whether their results are coincidental and that it has the real interest, an important limitation, scientists who are not involved. said in the study.

Rafael Casellas, a molecular immunologist at the NIH, said it was important to monitor the evolution of the coronavirus to determine if vaccines and other therapies needed to be updated, or that shot recordings were needed. “We can not take this virus lightly,” he said. “We just do not have enough information, so we have to be careful.”

Write to Daniela Hernandez by [email protected]