A vaccine for COVID-19
- The Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine (and many other vaccines) take advantage of gene therapy technology too.
- This chimpanzee adenoviral vector delivers a gene encoding for a coronavirus coat protein (SARS-CoV-2 Spike) to be expressed for a very short time.
- By introducing this coat protein as a target to immune cells, the vaccine facilitates them to recognise and fight a future coronavirus infection!
This is one example of how researchers are taking advantage of adenoviral vectors to generate vaccines.
Adenoviral vectors:
- Effective and efficient short-term and immunogenic expression.
- Relatively large gene capacity.
- Easy to produce high quantities.
Click here to discover how an adenovirus is also being developed to fight cancer!
Other viral vectors are also being used or developed to treat disease:
Find out more about the Oxford Astrazeneca vaccine.
Find out more about the work of the Gill Hyde Gene Medicine research group at the University of Oxford.