COVID-19
Persistence Pays Off: Recognizing Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, the 2023 Nobel Prize Winners in Physiology or Medicine
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Last week, biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman earned the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries that enabled the development of effective messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against COVID-19. On behalf of the NIH community, I’d like to congratulate Karikó and Weissman and thank them for their persistence in pursuing their investigations. NIH is proud to have supported their seminal research, cited by the Nobel Assembly as key publications.1,2,3
While the lifesaving benefits of mRNA vaccines are now clearly realized, Karikó and Weissman’s breakthrough finding in 2005 was not fully appreciated at the time as to why it would be significant. However, their dogged dedication to gaining a better understanding of how RNA interacts with the immune system underscores the often-underappreciated importance of incremental research. Following where the science leads through step-by-step investigations often doesn’t appear to be flashy, but it can end up leading to major advances.
To best describe Karikó and Weissman’s discovery, I’ll first do a quick review of vaccine history. As many of you know, vaccines stimulate our immune systems to protect us from getting infected or from getting very sick from a specific pathogen. Since the late 1700s, scientists have used various approaches to design effective vaccines. Some vaccines introduce a weakened or noninfectious version of a virus to the body, while others present only a small part of the virus, like a protein. The immune system detects the weak or partial virus and develops specialized defenses against it. These defenses work to protect us if we are ever exposed to the real virus.
In the early 1990s, scientists began exploring a different approach to vaccines that involved delivering genetic material, or instructions, so the body’s own cells could make the virus proteins that stimulate an immune response.4,5 Because this approach eliminates the step of growing virus or virus protein in the laboratory—which can be difficult to do in very large quantities and can require a lot of time and money—it had potential, in theory, to be a faster and cheaper way to manufacture vaccines.
Scientists were exploring two types of vaccines as part of this new approach: DNA vaccines and messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. DNA vaccines deliver an encoded protein recipe that the cell first copies or transcribes before it starts making protein. For mRNA vaccines, the transcription process is done in the laboratory, and the vaccine delivers the “readable” instructions to the cell for making protein. However, mRNA was not immediately a practical vaccine approach due to several scientific hurdles, including that it caused inflammatory reactions that could be unhealthy for people.
Unfazed by the challenges, Karikó and Weissman spent years pursuing research on RNA and the immune system. They had a brilliant idea that they turned into a significant discovery in 2005 when they proved that inserting subtle chemical modifications to lab-transcribed mRNA eliminated the unwanted inflammatory response.1 In later studies, the pair showed that these chemical modifications also increased protein production.2,3 Both discoveries would be critical to advancing the use of mRNA-based vaccines and therapies.
Earlier theories that mRNA could enable rapid vaccine development turned out to be true. By March 2020, the first clinical trial of an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 had begun enrolling volunteers, and by December 2020, health care workers were receiving their first shots. This unprecedented timeline was only possible because of Karikó and Weissman’s decades of work, combined with the tireless efforts of many academic, industry and government scientists, including several from the NIH intramural program. Now, researchers are exploring how mRNA could be used in vaccines for other infectious diseases and in cancer vaccines.
As an investigator myself, I’m fascinated by how science continues to build on itself—a process that is done out of the public eye. Luckily every year, the Nobel Prize briefly illuminates for the larger public this long arc of scientific discovery. The Nobel Assembly’s recognition of Karikó and Weissman is a tribute to all scientists who do the painstaking work of trying to understand how things work. Many of the tools we have today to better prevent and treat diseases would not have been possible without the brilliance, tenacity and grit of researchers like Karikó and Weissman.
References:
- K Karikó, et al. Suppression of RNA Recognition by Toll-like Receptors: The impact of nucleoside modification and the evolutionary origin of RNA. Immunity DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2005.06.008 (2005).
- K Karikó, et al. Incorporation of pseudouridine into mRNA yields superior nonimmunogenic vector with increased translational capacity and biological stability. Molecular Therapy DOI: 10.1038/mt.2008.200 (2008).
- BR Anderson, et al. Incorporation of pseudouridine into mRNA enhances translation by diminishing PKR activation. Nucleic Acids Research DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkq347 (2010).
- DC Tang, et al. Genetic immunization is a simple method for eliciting an immune response. Nature DOI: 10.1038/356152a0 (1992).
- F Martinon, et al. Induction of virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in vivo by liposome-entrapped mRNA. European Journal of Immunology DOI: 10.1002/eji.1830230749 (1993).
NIH Support:
Katalin Karikó: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Drew Weissman: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Immune Resilience is Key to a Long and Healthy Life
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Do you feel as if you or perhaps your family members are constantly coming down with illnesses that drag on longer than they should? Or, maybe you’re one of those lucky people who rarely becomes ill and, if you do, recovers faster than others.
It’s clear that some people generally are more susceptible to infectious illnesses, while others manage to stay healthier or bounce back more quickly, sometimes even into old age. Why is this? A new study from an NIH-supported team has an intriguing answer [1]. The difference, they suggest, may be explained in part by a new measure of immunity they call immune resilience—the ability of the immune system to rapidly launch attacks that defend effectively against infectious invaders and respond appropriately to other types of inflammatory stressors, including aging or other health conditions, and then quickly recover, while keeping potentially damaging inflammation under wraps.
The findings in the journal Nature Communications come from an international team led by Sunil Ahuja, University of Texas Health Science Center and the Department of Veterans Affairs Center for Personalized Medicine, both in San Antonio. To understand the role of immune resilience and its effect on longevity and health outcomes, the researchers looked at multiple other studies including healthy individuals and those with a range of health conditions that challenged their immune systems.
By looking at multiple studies in varied infectious and other contexts, they hoped to find clues as to why some people remain healthier even in the face of varied inflammatory stressors, ranging from mild to more severe. But to understand how immune resilience influences health outcomes, they first needed a way to measure or grade this immune attribute.
The researchers developed two methods for measuring immune resilience. The first metric, a laboratory test called immune health grades (IHGs), is a four-tier grading system that calculates the balance between infection-fighting CD8+ and CD4+ T-cells. IHG-I denotes the best balance tracking the highest level of resilience, and IHG-IV denotes the worst balance tracking the lowest level of immune resilience. An imbalance between the levels of these T cell types is observed in many people as they age, when they get sick, and in people with autoimmune diseases and other conditions.
The researchers also developed a second metric that looks for two patterns of expression of a select set of genes. One pattern associated with survival and the other with death. The survival-associated pattern is primarily related to immune competence, or the immune system’s ability to function swiftly and restore activities that encourage disease resistance. The mortality-associated genes are closely related to inflammation, a process through which the immune system eliminates pathogens and begins the healing process but that also underlies many disease states.
Their studies have shown that high expression of the survival-associated genes and lower expression of mortality-associated genes indicate optimal immune resilience, correlating with a longer lifespan. The opposite pattern indicates poor resilience and a greater risk of premature death. When both sets of genes are either low or high at the same time, immune resilience and mortality risks are more moderate.
In the newly reported study initiated in 2014, Ahuja and his colleagues set out to assess immune resilience in a collection of about 48,500 people, with or without various acute, repetitive, or chronic challenges to their immune systems. In an earlier study, the researchers showed that this novel way to measure immune status and resilience predicted hospitalization and mortality during acute COVID-19 across a wide age spectrum [2].
The investigators have analyzed stored blood samples and publicly available data representing people, many of whom were healthy volunteers, who had enrolled in different studies conducted in Africa, Europe, and North America. Volunteers ranged in age from 9 to 103 years. They also evaluated participants in the Framingham Heart Study, a long-term effort to identify common factors and characteristics that contribute to cardiovascular disease.
To examine people with a wide range of health challenges and associated stresses on their immune systems, the team also included participants who had influenza or COVID-19, and people living with HIV. They also included kidney transplant recipients, people with lifestyle factors that put them at high risk for sexually transmitted infections, and people who’d had sepsis, a condition in which the body has an extreme and life-threatening response following an infection.
The question in all these contexts was the same: How well did the two metrics of immune resilience predict an individual’s health outcomes and lifespan? The short answer is that immune resilience, longevity, and better health outcomes tracked together well. Those with metrics indicating optimal immune resilience generally had better health outcomes and lived longer than those who had lower scores on the immunity grading scale. Indeed, those with optimal immune resilience were more likely to:
- Live longer,
- Resist HIV infection or the progression from HIV to AIDS,
- Resist symptomatic influenza,
- Resist a recurrence of skin cancer after a kidney transplant,
- Survive COVID-19, and
- Survive sepsis.
The study also revealed other interesting findings. While immune resilience generally declines with age, some people maintain higher levels of immune resilience as they get older for reasons that aren’t yet known, according to the researchers. Some people also maintain higher levels of immune resilience despite the presence of inflammatory stress to their immune systems such as during HIV infection or acute COVID-19. People of all ages can show high or low immune resilience. The study also found that higher immune resilience is more common in females than it is in males.
The findings suggest that there is a lot more to learn about why people differ in their ability to preserve optimal immune resilience. With further research, it may be possible to develop treatments or other methods to encourage or restore immune resilience as a way of improving general health, according to the study team.
The researchers suggest it’s possible that one day checkups of a person’s immune resilience could help us to understand and predict an individual’s health status and risk for a wide range of health conditions. It could also help to identify those individuals who may be at a higher risk of poor outcomes when they do get sick and may need more aggressive treatment. Researchers may also consider immune resilience when designing vaccine clinical trials.
A more thorough understanding of immune resilience and discovery of ways to improve it may help to address important health disparities linked to differences in race, ethnicity, geography, and other factors. We know that healthy eating, exercising, and taking precautions to avoid getting sick foster good health and longevity; in the future, perhaps we’ll also consider how our immune resilience measures up and take steps to achieve or maintain a healthier, more balanced, immunity status.
References:
[1] Immune resilience despite inflammatory stress promotes longevity and favorable health outcomes including resistance to infection. Ahuja SK, Manoharan MS, Lee GC, McKinnon LR, Meunier JA, Steri M, Harper N, Fiorillo E, Smith AM, Restrepo MI, Branum AP, Bottomley MJ, Orrù V, Jimenez F, Carrillo A, Pandranki L, Winter CA, Winter LA, Gaitan AA, Moreira AG, Walter EA, Silvestri G, King CL, Zheng YT, Zheng HY, Kimani J, Blake Ball T, Plummer FA, Fowke KR, Harden PN, Wood KJ, Ferris MT, Lund JM, Heise MT, Garrett N, Canady KR, Abdool Karim SS, Little SJ, Gianella S, Smith DM, Letendre S, Richman DD, Cucca F, Trinh H, Sanchez-Reilly S, Hecht JM, Cadena Zuluaga JA, Anzueto A, Pugh JA; South Texas Veterans Health Care System COVID-19 team; Agan BK, Root-Bernstein R, Clark RA, Okulicz JF, He W. Nat Commun. 2023 Jun 13;14(1):3286. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-38238-6. PMID: 37311745.
[2] Immunologic resilience and COVID-19 survival advantage. Lee GC, Restrepo MI, Harper N, Manoharan MS, Smith AM, Meunier JA, Sanchez-Reilly S, Ehsan A, Branum AP, Winter C, Winter L, Jimenez F, Pandranki L, Carrillo A, Perez GL, Anzueto A, Trinh H, Lee M, Hecht JM, Martinez-Vargas C, Sehgal RT, Cadena J, Walter EA, Oakman K, Benavides R, Pugh JA; South Texas Veterans Health Care System COVID-19 Team; Letendre S, Steri M, Orrù V, Fiorillo E, Cucca F, Moreira AG, Zhang N, Leadbetter E, Agan BK, Richman DD, He W, Clark RA, Okulicz JF, Ahuja SK. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2021 Nov;148(5):1176-1191. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2021.08.021. Epub 2021 Sep 8. PMID: 34508765; PMCID: PMC8425719.
Links:
COVID-19 Research (NIH)
HIV Info (NIH)
Sepsis (National Institute of General Medical Sciences/NIH)
Sunil Ahuja (University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio)
Framingham Heart Study (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/NIH)
“A Secret to Health and Long Life? Immune Resilience, NIAID Grantees Report,” NIAID Now Blog, June 13, 2023
NIH Support: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Institute on Aging; National Institute of Mental Health; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Welcome to Response Team Members
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
RECOVER: What Clinical Research Comes Next for Helping People with Long COVID
“I connected with RECOVER to be a part of the answers that I was looking for when I was at my worst.” Long COVID patient and RECOVER representative, Nitza Rochez (Bronx, NY)
People, like Nitza Rochez, who are living with Long COVID—the wide-ranging health issues that can follow an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19—experience disabling symptoms with significant physical, emotional and financial consequences.
The NIH has been engaging and listening to Nitza and others living with Long COVID even before the start of its Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative. But now, with the launch of RECOVER, patients and those with affected family or community members have joined researchers, clinicians, and experts in their efforts to unlock the mysteries of Long COVID. All have come together to understand what causes the condition, identify who is most at risk, and determine how to prevent and treat it.
RECOVER is unprecedented in its size and scope as the most-diverse, deeply characterized cohort of Long COVID patients. We’ve enlisted the help of many patient volunteers, who have enrolled in observational studies designed to help researchers learn as much as possible about people who have Long COVID.
Indeed, thousands of research participants are now providing health information and undergoing in-depth medical evaluations and tests, enabling investigators to look for trends. Additionally, studies of millions of electronic medical records are providing insights about those who have received care during the pandemic. More than 40 studies are being conducted to identify the causes of disease, potential biomarkers of Long COVID, and new therapeutic targets.
In all, RECOVER’s research assets are voluminous. They involve invaluable contributions from many people and communities, including research volunteers, research investigators, and clinical specialists. In addition, millions of health records and numerous related tissues and specimens are being analyzed for possible leads.
At the center of it all is the National Community Engagement Group (NCEG). The NCEG is comprised of people living with Long COVID and those representing others living with the condition, and it is truly instrumental to the initiative’s progress in understanding how and why SARS-CoV-2 impacts people in different ways. It’s also helping researchers learn why some people recover while others do not.
So far, we’ve learned that people hospitalized with COVID-19 are twice as likely to have Long COVID than those who were not hospitalized for infection. We’ve also learned that members of racial and ethnic minority groups with Long COVID were more likely to have been hospitalized with COVID-19.
Similarly, disparities in Long COVID exist within those living in areas with particular environmental exposures [1], and those who were already burdened by other diseases and conditions—such as diabetes and chronic pulmonary disease [2]. We’ve also discovered that the certain types of symptoms of Long COVID are consistent among patients regardless of which SARS-CoV-2 variant caused their initial infection. Yet, people infected with the earlier variants have a higher number of symptoms than those infected with more recent variants.
Patient experiences have guided and will continue to guide the study designs and trajectory of RECOVER. Now, fueled by the knowledge that we have gained, RECOVER is preparing to advance to the next phase of discovery—testing interventions in clinical trials to see if they can help people with Long COVID.
To prepare, we are beginning to identify potential clinical trial sites. This important step will help us to find the right places with the right staff and capabilities for enrolling the appropriate patient populations needed to implement the studies. We’ll ensure that the public knows when these upcoming clinical trials are ready to enroll.
Of course, the design of these RECOVER clinical trials will be critical, and insights gained from patients have been key in this process. Results from RECOVER study questionnaires, surveys, and discussions with people experiencing Long COVID identified symptom clusters considered to be the most significant and burdensome to patients. These include sleep disorders, “brain fog” (trouble thinking clearly), exercise intolerance and fatigue, and nervous system dysfunction affecting people’s ability to regulate normal body functions like heart rate and body temperature.
These patient observations have effectively guided the design of the clinical trials that will evaluate whether certain interventions and therapies can help alleviate symptoms that are part of these specific clusters. We’re excited to be advancing toward this phase of the initiative and, again, are very grateful to patient representatives like Nitza, quoted above, for getting us to this phase.
Effective evaluation of those treatments will be important, too. Early in the pandemic, while many clinical trials were launching, most were not large enough or did not have the appropriate objectives to define effective treatments for acute COVID-19. This left clinicians with few clear options when faced with patients needing help.
Learning from this experience, the RECOVER trials will be harmonized to ensure coordinated and efficient evaluation of interventions—in other words, all potential therapies will be using the same protocols platforms and the same data elements. This consistency accelerates our understanding and strengthens the certainty of findings.
Given the widespread and diverse impact that the virus has on the body, it is highly likely that more than one treatment will be needed for each kind of patient experience. Finding solutions for everyone—people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, and geographic locations—is paramount.
RECOVER patient representative, Juan Lewis, of San Antonio shared with us, “In April 2020, I was fighting for my life, and today I fight for my quality of life. COVID impacted me physically, mentally, socially, and financially.”
For people like Juan who are experiencing debilitating Long COVID symptoms, we know that finding answers as quickly as possible is critical. As we look ahead to the next 12 months, we’ll continue the studies evaluating the underlying causes, risk factors, and outcomes of Long Covid, and we anticipate significant scientific progress on research leading to Long COVID treatments.
Keep an eye on the RECOVER website for updates on our progress, and published findings.
References:
[1] Identifying environmental risk factors for post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection: An EHR-based cohort study from the recover program. Zhang Y, Hu H, Fokaidis V, V CL, Xu J, Zang C, Xu Z, Wang F, Koropsak M, Bian J, Hall J, Rothman RL, Shenkman EA, Wei WQ, Weiner MG, Carton TW, Kaushal R. Environ Adv. 2023 Apr;11:100352.
[2] Identifying who has long COVID in the USA: a machine learning approach using N3C data. Pfaff ER, Girvin AT, Bennett TD, Bhatia A, Brooks IM, Deer RR, Dekermanjian JP, Jolley SE, Kahn MG, Kostka K, McMurry JA, Moffitt R, Walden A, Chute CG, Haendel MA; N3C Consortium. Lancet Digit Health. 2022 Jul;4(7):e532-e541.
Links:
RECOVER: Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery
Long COVID: Ask NIH Leader about Latest Research (YouTube)
NIH Builds Large Nationwide Study Population of Tens of Thousands to Support Research on Long-Term Effects of COVID-19, NIH News Release, September 15, 2021
Understanding Long-Term COVID-19 Symptoms and Enhancing Recovery, NIH Director’s Blog, October 4, 2022.
NIH RECOVER Research Identifies Potential Long COVID Disparities. NIH News Release, February 16, 2023.
NIH RECOVER Listening Session, June 2021 (NIH Videocast)
NIH RECOVER Listening Session: Understanding Long COVID Across Communities of Color and Those Hardest Hit by COVID, January 21, 2022 (NIH Videocast)
Note: Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who performs the duties of the NIH Director, has asked the heads of NIH’s Institutes, Centers, and Offices to contribute occasional guest posts to the blog to highlight some of the interesting science that they support and conduct. This is the 25th in the series of NIH guest posts that will run until a new permanent NIH director is in place.
Thank You, Dr. Fauci
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
This Is Why NIH Invests in Global Health Research
Posted on by Roger I. Glass, M.D., Ph.D., Fogarty International Center
Efforts over the past few years to end the COVID-19 pandemic clearly reveal how global health impacts individual wellbeing and national security. At NIH, the Fogarty International Center helps the other institutes become engaged with global health research, which investigates the dual burden of infectious disease and non-communicable disease.
Global health research also encompasses data science, economics, genetics, climate change science, and many other disciplines. For more than 50 years, Fogarty has been building partnerships among institutions in the U.S. and abroad, while training the next generation of scientists focused on universal health needs.
America’s investment in Fogarty has paid rich dividends
During the pandemic, in particular, we’ve seen researchers trained by our programs make scientific discoveries that contributed to international security. Take Jessica Manning, a former Fogarty fellow who now conducts malaria research in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Her team at the Ministry of Health sequenced the viral strain of SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19, infecting the first Cambodian patient and documented early the spread of this novel coronavirus outside of China.
Similarly, Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for the Genomics of Infectious Disease, Ede, Nigeria, sequenced the first SARS-CoV-2 genome in Africa. Happi was able to do it by adapting the sequencing and analytical pipelines that he’d created back when he was a Fogarty grantee studying Ebola.
In Botswana, Sikhulile Moyo leveraged the skills he’d acquired while supported by a Fogarty HIV research training grant with Max Essex, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA, to track COVID-19 mutations for his country’s Ministry of Health. Last November, he alerted the world of a new Omicron variant. Within six weeks, Omicron became the dominant global strain, challenging the ability of COVID vaccines to control its spread. In the Dominican Republic, William Duke, a national commission member, used what he’d learned as a Fogarty trainee to help create a national COVID-19 intervention plan to prevent and control the disease.
Fogarty’s fostering of global health leaders is one way we advance scientific expertise while ensuring our nation’s biosecurity. Another is by finding effective ways to study abroad the same health conditions that affect our own population.
Research conducted in Colombia, for example, may provide clues for preventing Alzheimer’s disease in the U.S. Fogarty support brought together neuroscientists Kenneth Kosik, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Francisco Lopera, University of Antioquia, Colombia, to study members of the largest-known family with an early-onset, rapidly progressive form of the disease. Over the years, Kosik and Lopera have trained local scientists, explored gene therapy targets, investigated biomarkers to monitor disease progression, and conducted drug trials in search of a cure for Alzheimer’s.
Researchers in other fields also discover unique opportunities to investigate populations with high rates of disease. Siana Nkya, a Fogarty grantee based in Tanzania, has devoted her career to studying the genetic determinants of sickle cell disease, which affects many people around the world, including in the U.S. We hope that US-African partnerships might develop improved, affordable treatments and a cure for all patients with this devastating disease. Similarly, people in the U.S. have access to state-of-the-art HIV treatment studies in places around the globe where incidence rates are higher.
Fogarty has supported many milestone achievements in HIV research over the years. Among them is a study that took place in nine countries. The research, led by Myron Cohen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, established that antiretroviral therapy can prevent sexual transmission of HIV-1 among couples in which one person is infected and the other is not. In fact, this research informs current HIV treatment recommendations worldwide, including in the U.S.
Americans will also undoubtedly benefit from projects funded by Fogarty’s Global Brain and Nervous System Disorders Research across the Lifespan program. For example, psychologist Tatiana Balachova, University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, has designed an intervention for women in Russia to prevent fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. In another project in South Africa, Sandra and Joseph Jacobson, Wayne State University, Detroit, conducted the first-ever prospective longitudinal study of the syndrome. Findings from both projects are ripe for translation within an American context.
Other examples of Global Brain program investigations with broad implications in our own country include studying early psychosis in China; capacity building for schizophrenia research in Macedonia; exploring family consequences from the Zika virus in Brazil; and studying dementia and related health and social challenges in Lebanon.
These are just a few examples of Fogarty’s work and its unique mission. What is most remarkable about Fogarty is that just under 90 percent of our grants are co-funded by at least one other NIH institute, center, or office. Collaboration, both within borders and across them, is Fogarty’s formula for success.
Links:
Fogarty International Center (NIH)
Overview of Brain Disorders: Research Across the Lifespan (Fogarty)
Former Fogarty Scholar Dr Jessica Manning Helps Cambodia Respond to COVID (Fogarty)
Christian Happi: Former Fogarty Grantee Leads COVID-19 Genomics Work in Africa (Fogarty)
Sikhulile Moyo: Fogarty Fellow Recognized for Omicron Discovery (Fogarty)
William Duke: Former Fogarty HIV Trainee Helps Lead Dominican Republic’s COVID Response (Fogarty)
Kenneth Kosic and Francisco Lopera: NIH Support Spurs Alzheimer’s Research in Colombia (Fogarty)
Former Fogarty fellow Siana Nkya Tackles Sickle Cell Disease in Tanzania (Fogarty)
Tatiana Balachova: Researchers Tackle Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in Russia (Fogarty)
Sandra and Joseph Jacobson: Fetal Alcohol Exposure Research Supported by NIAAA in South Africa, Ukraine and Russia Improves Prevention, Outcomes (Fogarty)
Note: Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who performs the duties of the NIH Director, has asked the heads of NIH’s Institutes and Centers (ICs) to contribute occasional guest posts to the blog to highlight some of the interesting science that they support and conduct. This is the 22nd in the series of NIH IC guest posts that will run until a new permanent NIH director is in place.
Experimental mRNA Vaccine May Protect Against All 20 Influenza Virus Subtypes
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
Flu season is now upon us, and protecting yourself and loved ones is still as easy as heading to the nearest pharmacy for your annual flu shot. These vaccines are formulated each year to protect against up to four circulating strains of influenza virus, and they generally do a good job of this. What they can’t do is prevent future outbreaks of more novel flu viruses that occasionally spill over from other species into humans, thereby avoiding a future influenza pandemic.
On this latter and more-challenging front, there’s some encouraging news that was published recently in the journal Science [1]. An NIH-funded team has developed a unique “universal flu vaccine” that, with one seasonal shot, that has the potential to build immune protection against any of the 20 known subtypes of influenza virus and protect against future outbreaks.
While this experimental flu vaccine hasn’t yet been tested in people, the concept has shown great promise in advanced pre-clinical studies. Human clinical trials will hopefully start in the coming year. The researchers don’t expect that this universal flu vaccine will prevent influenza infection altogether. But, like COVID-19 vaccines, the new flu vaccine should help to reduce severe influenza illnesses and deaths when a person does get sick.
So, how does one develop a 20-in-1“multivalent” flu vaccine? It turns out that the key is the same messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that’s enabled two of the safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19, which have been so instrumental in fighting the pandemic. This includes the latest boosters from both Pfizer and Moderna, which now offer updated protection against currently circulating Omicron variants.
While this isn’t the first attempt to develop a universal flu vaccine, past attempts had primarily focused on a limited number of conserved antigens. An antigen is a protein or other substance that produces an immune response. Conserved antigens are those that tend to stay the same over time.
Because conserved antigens will look similar in many different influenza viruses, the hope was that vaccines targeting a small number of them would afford some broad influenza protection. But the focus on a strategy involving few antigens was driven largely by practical limitations. Using traditional methods to produce vaccines by growing flu viruses in eggs and isolating proteins, it simply isn’t feasible to include more than about four targets.
That’s where recent advances in mRNA technology come in. What makes mRNA so nifty for vaccines is that all you need to know is the letters, or sequence, that encodes the genetic material of a virus, including the sequences that get translated into proteins.
A research team led by Scott Hensley, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, recognized that the ease of designing and manufacturing mRNA vaccines opened the door to an alternate approach to developing a universal flu vaccine. Rather than limiting themselves to a few antigens, the researchers could make an all-in-one influenza vaccine, encoding antigens from every known influenza virus subtype.
Influenza vaccines generally target portions of a plentiful protein on the viral surface known as hemagglutinin (H). In earlier work, Hensley’s team, in collaboration with Perelman’s mRNA vaccine pioneer Drew Weissman, showed they could use mRNA technology to produce vaccines with H antigens from single influenza viruses [2, 3]. To protect the fragile mRNA molecules that encode a selected H antigen, researchers deliver them to cells inside well-tolerated microscopic lipid shells, or nanoparticles. The same is true of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. In their earlier studies, the researchers found that when an mRNA vaccine aimed at one flu virus subtype was given to mice and ferrets in the lab, their cells made the encoded H antigen, eliciting protective antibodies.
In this latest study, they threw antigens from all 20 known flu viruses into the mix. This included H antigens from 18 known types of influenza A and two lineages of influenza B. The goal was to develop a vaccine that could teach the immune system to recognize and respond to any of them.
More study is needed, of course, but early indications are encouraging. The vaccine generated strong and broad antibody responses in animals. Importantly, it worked both in animals with no previous immunity to the flu and in those previously infected with flu viruses. That came as good news because past infections and resulting antibodies sometimes can interfere with the development of new antibodies against related viral subtypes.
In more good news, the researchers found that vaccinated mice and ferrets were protected against severe illness when later challenged with flu viruses. Those viruses included some that were closely matched to antigens in the vaccine, along with some that weren’t.
The findings offer proof-of-principle that mRNA vaccines containing a wide range of antigens can offer broad protection against influenza and likely other viruses as well, including the coronavirus strains responsible for COVID-19. The researchers report that they’re moving toward clinical trials in people, with the goal of beginning an early phase 1 trial in the coming year. The hope is that these developments—driven in part by technological advances and lessons learned over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic—will help to mitigate or perhaps even prevent future pandemics.
References:
[1] A multivalent nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccine against all known influenza virus subtypes. Arevalo CP, Bolton MJ, Le Sage V, Ye N, Furey C, Muramatsu H, Alameh MG, Pardi N, Drapeau EM, Parkhouse K, Garretson T, Morris JS, Moncla LH, Tam YK, Fan SHY, Lakdawala SS, Weissman D, Hensley SE. Science. 2022 Nov 25;378(6622):899-904.
[2] Nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccination partially overcomes maternal antibody inhibition of de novo immune responses in mice. Willis E, Pardi N, Parkhouse K, Mui BL, Tam YK, Weissman D, Hensley SE. Sci Transl Med. 2020 Jan 8;12(525):eaav5701.
[3] Nucleoside-modified mRNA immunization elicits influenza virus hemagglutinin stalk-specific antibodies. Pardi N, Parkhouse K, Kirkpatrick E, McMahon M, Zost SJ, Mui BL, Tam YK, Karikó K, Barbosa CJ, Madden TD, Hope MJ, Krammer F, Hensley SE, Weissman D. Nat Commun. 2018 Aug 22;9(1):3361.
Links:
Understanding Flu Viruses (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta)
COVID Research (NIH)
Decades in the Making: mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines (NIH)
Video: mRNA Flu Vaccines: Preventing the Next Pandemic (Penn Medicine, Philadelphia)
Scott Hensley (Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia)
Weissman Lab (Perelman School of Medicine)
Video: The Story Behind mRNA COVID Vaccines: Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman (Penn Medicine, Philadelphia)
NIH Support: National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Clinical Center Doctors Testing 3D-Printed Miniature Ventilator
Posted on by James K. Gilman, MD, NIH Clinical Center
Here at the NIH Clinical Center, we are proud to be considered a world-renowned research hospital that provides hope through pioneering clinical research to improve human health. But what you may not know is that our doctors are constantly partnering with public and private sectors to come up with innovative technologies that will help to advance health outcomes.
I’m excited to bring to you a story that is perfect example of the ingenuity of our NIH doctors working with global strategic partners to create potentially life-saving technologies. This story begins during the COVID-19 pandemic with the global shortage of ventilators to help patients breathe. Hospitals had a profound need for inexpensive, easy-to-use, rapidly mass-produced resuscitation devices that could be quickly distributed in areas of critical need.
Through strategic partnerships, our Clinical Center doctors learned about and joined an international group of engineers, physicians, respiratory therapists, and patient advocates using their engineering skills to create a ventilator that was functional, affordable, and intuitive. After several iterations and bench testing, they devised a user-friendly ventilator.
Then, with the assistance of 3D-printing technology, they improved the original design and did something pretty incredible: the team created the smallest single-patient ventilator seen to date. The device is just 2.4 centimeters (about 1 inch) in diameter with a length of 7.4 centimeters (about 3 inches).
A typical ventilator in a hospital obviously is much larger and has a bellows system. It fills with oxygen and then forces it into the lungs followed by the patient passively exhaling. These systems have multiple moving parts, valves, hoses, and electronic or mechanical controls to manage all aspects of the oxygen flow into the lungs.
But our miniature, 3D-printed ventilator is single use, disposable, and has no moving parts. It’s based on principles of fluidics to ventilate patients by automatically oscillating between forced inspiration and assisted expiration as airway pressure changes. It requires only a continuous supply of pressurized oxygen.
The possibilities of this 3D-printed miniature ventilator are broad. The ventilators could be easily used in emergency transport, potentially treating battlefield casualties or responding to disasters and mass casualty events like earthquakes.
While refining a concept is important, the key is converting it to actual use, which our doctors are doing admirably in their preclinical and clinical studies. NIH’s William Pritchard, Andrew Mannes, Brad Wood, John Karanian, Ivane Bakhutashvili, Matthew Starost, David Eckstein, and medical student Sheridan Reed studied and have already tested the ventilators in swine with acute lung injury, a common severe outcome in a number of respiratory threats including COVID-19.
In the study, the doctors tested three versions of the device built to correspond to mild, moderate, and severe lung injury. The respirators provided adequate support for moderate and mild lung injuries, and the doctors recall how amazing it was initially to witness a 190-pound swine ventilated by this miniature ventilator.
The doctors believe that the 3D-printed miniature ventilator is a potential “game changer” from start to finish since it is lifesaving, small, simple to use, can be easily and inexpensively printed and stored, and does not require additional maintenance. They recently published their preclinical trial results in the journal Science Translational Medicine [1].
The NIH team is preparing to initiate first-in-human trials here at the Clinical Center in the coming months. Perhaps, in the not-too-distant future, a device designed to help people breathe could fit into your pocket next to your phone and keys.
Reference:
[1] In-line miniature 3D-printed pressure-cycled ventilator maintains respiratory homeostasis in swine with induced acute pulmonary injury. Pritchard WF, Karanian JW, Jung C, Bakhutashvili I, Reed SL, Starost MF, Froelke BR, Barnes TR, Stevenson D, Mendoza A, Eckstein DJ, Wood BJ, Walsh BK, Mannes AJ. Sci Transl Med. 2022 Oct 12;14(666):eabm8351.
Links:
Clinical Center (NIH)
Andrew Mannes (Clinical Center)
Bradford Wood (Clinical Center)
David Eckstein (Clinical Center)
Note: Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who performs the duties of the NIH Director, has asked the heads of NIH’s Institutes and Centers (ICs) to contribute occasional guest posts to the blog to highlight some of the interesting science that they support and conduct. This is the 21st in the series of NIH IC guest posts that will run until a new permanent NIH director is in place.
Gratitude for Biomedical Progress and All Those Who Make It Possible
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
It’s good for our health to eat right, exercise, and get plenty of rest. Still, many other things contribute to our sense of wellbeing, including making it a point to practice gratitude whenever we can. With this in mind, I can’t think of a better time than Thanksgiving to recognize just a few of the many reasons that I—and everyone who believes in the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—have to be grateful.
First, I’m thankful for the many enormously talented people with whom I’ve worked over the past year while performing the duties of the NIH Director. Particular thanks go to those on my immediate team within the Office of the Director. I could not have taken on this challenge without their dedicated support.
I’m also gratified by the continued enthusiasm and support for biomedical research from so many different corners of our society. This includes the many thousands of unsung, patient partners who put their time, effort, and, in some cases, even their lives on the line for the sake of medical progress and promising treatment advances. Without them, clinical research—including the most pivotal clinical trials—simply wouldn’t be possible.
I am most appreciative of the continuing efforts at NIH and across the broader biomedical community to further enable diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility within the biomedical research workforce and in all the work that NIH supports.
High on my Thanksgiving list is the widespread availability of COVID-19 bivalent booster shots. These boosters not only guard against older strains of the coronavirus, but also broaden immunity to the newer Omicron variant and its many subvariants. I’m also tremendously grateful for everyone who has—or soon will—get boosted to protect yourself, your loved ones, and your communities as the winter months fast approach.
Another big “thank you” goes out to all the researchers studying Long COVID, the complex and potentially debilitating constellation of symptoms that strikes some people after recovery from COVID-19. I look forward to more answers as this work continues and we certainly couldn’t do it without our patient partners.
I’d also like to express my appreciation for the NIH’s institute and center directors who’ve contributed to the NIH Director’s Blog to showcase NIH’s broad and diverse portfolio of promising research.
Finally, a special thanks to all of you who read this blog. As you gather with family and friends to celebrate this Thanksgiving holiday, I hope the time you spend here gives you a few more reasons to feel grateful and appreciate the importance of NIH in turning scientific discovery into better health for all.
Study Shows Benefits of COVID-19 Vaccines and Boosters
Posted on by Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D.
As colder temperatures settle in and people spend more time gathered indoors, cases of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses almost certainly will rise. That’s why, along with scheduling your annual flu shot, it’s now recommended that those age 5 and up should get an updated COVID-19 booster shot [1,2]. Not only will these new boosters guard against the original strain of the coronavirus that started the pandemic, they will heighten your immunity to the Omicron variant and several of the subvariants that continue to circulate in the U.S. with devastating effects.
At last count, about 14.8 million people in the U.S.—including me—have rolled up their sleeves to receive an updated booster shot [3]. It’s a good start, but it also means that most Americans aren’t fully up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines. If you or your loved ones are among them, a new study may provide some needed encouragement to make an appointment at a nearby pharmacy or clinic to get boosted [4].
A team of NIH-supported researchers found a remarkably low incidence of severe COVID-19 illness last fall, winter, and spring among more than 1.6 million veterans who’d been vaccinated and boosted. Severe illness was also quite low in individuals without immune-compromising conditions.
These latest findings, published in the journal JAMA, come from a research group led by Dan Kelly, University of California, San Francisco. He and his team conducted their study drawing on existing health data from the Veterans Health Administration (VA) within a time window of July 2021 and May 2022.
They identified 1.6 million people who’d had a primary-care visit within the last two years and were fully vaccinated for COVID-19, which included receiving a booster shot. Almost three-quarters of those identified were 65 and older. Nearly all were male, and more than 70 percent had another pre-existing health condition that put them at greater risk of becoming seriously ill from a COVID-19 infection.
Over a 24-week follow-up period for each fully vaccinated individual, 125 per 10,000 people had a breakthrough infection. That’s about 1 percent. Just 8.9 in 10,000 fully vaccinated people—less than 0.1 percent—died or were hospitalized from COVID-19 pneumonia. Drilling down deeper into the data:
• Individuals with an immune-compromising condition had a very low rate of hospitalization or death. In this group, 39.6 per 10,000 people had a serious breakthrough infection. That translates to 0.3 percent.
• For people with other preexisting health conditions, including diabetes and heart disease, hospitalization or death totaled 0.07 percent, or 6.7 per 10,000 people.
• For otherwise healthy adults aged 65 and older, the incidence of hospitalization or death was 1.9 per 10,000 people, or 0.02 percent.
• For boosted participants 65 or younger with no high-risk conditions, hospitalization or death came to less than 1 per 10,000 people. That comes to less than 0.01 percent.
It’s worth noting that these results reflect a period when the Delta and Omicron variants were circulating, and available boosters still were based solely on the original variant. Heading into this winter, the hope is that the updated “bivalent” boosters from Pfizer and Moderna will offer even broader protection as this terrible virus continues to evolve.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend that everyone stay up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines. That means all adults and kids 5 and older are encouraged to get boosted if it has been at least two months since their last COVID-19 vaccine dose. For older people and those with other health conditions, it’s even more important given their elevated risk for severe illness.
What if you’ve had a COVID-19 infection recently? Getting vaccinated or boosted a few months after you’ve had a COVID-19 infection will offer you even better protection in the future.
So, if you are among the millions of Americans who’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19 but are now due for a booster, don’t delay. Get yourself boosted to protect your own health and the health of your loved ones as the holidays approach.
References:
[1] CDC recommends the first updated COVID-19 booster. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. September 1, 2022.
[2] CDC expands updated COVID-19 vaccines to include children ages 5 through 11. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, October 12, 2022.
[3] COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[4] Incidence of severe COVID-19 illness following vaccination and booster with BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, and Ad26.COV2.S vaccines. Kelly JD, Leonard S, Hoggatt KJ, Boscardin WJ, Lum EN, Moss-Vazquez TA, Andino R, Wong JK, Byers A, Bravata DM, Tien PC, Keyhani S. JAMA. 2022 Oct 11;328(14):1427-1437.
Links:
COVID-19 Research (NIH)
Dan Kelly (University of California, San Francisco)
NIH Support: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Next Page
