Mymetics Corp (MYMX)

[Work Harder]

COVID-19 vaccine development and a potential nanomaterial path forward

Review Article
Published: 15 July 2020

For example, Medicago and iBio are using Nicotiana benthamiana to produce VLPs using the S protein, and AdaptVac/ExpreS2ion is using insect cell expression system to make VLPs from the S2 protein; clinical trials are expected as early as July 2020 (https://www.medicago.com/en/newsroom/; https://ir.ibioinc.com/press-releases; https://news.cision.com/expres2ion-biotechnologies). Besides generating protein nanoparticles from antigenic subunits, their expression and/or display on proteinaceous biomaterial scaffolds such as ferritin, encapsulin51 and bacteriophage VLPs has also been utilized to achieve multivalent antigen display for enhanced immunogenicity52,53,54.

for example OncoGen, and University of Cambridge/DIOSynVax are using immunoinformatics-derived peptide sequences of S protein in their vaccine formulations (https://oncogen.ro/oncogen-vaccine-design-for-coronavirus/; https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/cambridge-research-team-working-towards-vaccine-against-covid-19). Within the DNA vaccine domain, Immunonomic Therapeutics/EpiVax/PharmaJet are leveraging in silico T-cell epitope prediction7

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-020-0737-y

Bavarian Nordic bets on Adaptvac VLP technology for COVID-19 vaccine push

The basic VLP concept is decades old. Its most successful application is in Merck & Co. Inc.’s human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil

https://www.bioworld.com/articles/434906-bavarian-nordic-bets-on-adaptvac-vlp-technology-for-covid-19-vaccine-push

Adaptvac and Expres2ion are both members of a European Commission-funded consortium that has already begun work on the VLP-based SARS-CoV2 vaccine, in collaboration with academic researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center, in the Netherlands, the Institute for Tropical Medicine at the University of Tübingen, Germany, the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Copenhagen, and the Laboratory of Virology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.