DNA vaccines protect monkeys from coronavirus
Monkeys were protected from the new coronavirus after receiving a DNA vaccine against the virus.
Seeking a strategy to stave off SARS-CoV-2 infection, Dan Barouch at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues explored vaccines composed of DNA (J. Yu et al. Science http://doi.org/dwfb; 2020). This type of vaccine prompts the recipient’s cells to make a pathogen or its components. That, in turn, stimulates the immune system.
The researchers developed six DNA vaccines based on a coronavirus protein called spike and tested them in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). The animals mounted an antibody response similar to the response seen in macaques and humans who’d recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection.