I published a short article back in 2021 in Academia Letters, titled ˝Can a Multi-Epitope Vaccine be a solution for COVID-19 pandemic˝?

Here is the abstract:

Problems associated with Wuhan spike protein-based vaccines are the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 strains that are more or less resistant to Wuhan spike protein-based vaccine-induced immunity, and toxicity of the spike protein (S protein alone can damage vascular endothelial cells). Multi-epitope vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, excluding the spike protein, could potentially be less toxic than Wuhan spike protein-based vaccines with less serious side effects, but still enough immunogenic to elicit protective immune response. Another potential benefit of a multi-epitope COVID-19 vaccine is that, taking into account the fact that most of the new SARS-CoV-2 strains carry significant new mutations in the spike protein and less significant mutations in other structural proteins of the virus, it could provide more potent immune response against new SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Link:

https://www.academia.edu/61858558/Can_a_Multi_Epitope_Vaccine_be_a_solution_for_COVID_19_pandemic

And now it is happening! I am so excited!

Researchers (Arieta et al) created a new multi-epitope vaccine.

Here is the abstract:

T-cell responses play an important role in protection against beta-coronavirus infections, including SARS-CoV-2, where they associate with decreased COVID-19 disease severity and duration. To enhance T-cell immunity across epitopes infrequently altered in SARS-CoV-2 variants, we designed BNT162b4, an mRNA vaccine component which is intended to be combined with BNT162b2, the spike-protein-encoding vaccine. BNT162b4 encodes variant-conserved, immunogenic segments of the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid, membrane, and ORF1ab proteins, targeting diverse HLA alleles. BNT162b4 elicits polyfunctional CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses from diverse epitopes in animal models, alone or when co-administered with BNT162b2 while preserving spike-specific immunity. Importantly, we demonstrate that BNT162b4 protects hamsters from severe disease and reduces viral titers following challenge with viral variants. These data suggest that a combination of BNT162b2 and BNT162b4 could reduce COVID-19 disease severity and duration caused by circulating or future variants. BNT162b4 is currently being clinically evaluated in combination with the BA.4/BA.5 Omicron-updated bivalent BNT162b2 (NCT05541861).

Link:

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)00403-8

Let me know what do you think!