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Researchers from the Butantan Institute in São Paulo are using innovative biotechnology techniques to develop an alternative vaccine against covid-19. The institute hopes the new approach will serve as a kind of plan B, in case vaccines made by the traditional model, which are already being tested in some countries, have not been satisfactory.
According to Butantan, the vaccine that the institute is developing uses a mechanism used by some bacteria to trick the human immune system: they produce small bubbles or vesicles, made with material from their membranes to disrupt defense cells. In this way, the immune system also begins to attack the bubbles, reducing aggression against bacteria.
The institute researchers are thinking of doing the same thing, making these bubbles in the laboratory, but instead of using the bacterial membrane, they will bind the surface proteins of the new coronavirus to the vesicles. Therefore, in contact with the defense system, the bubbles would create an immune memory in the body, stimulating the production of specific antibodies against the coronavirus.
According to Butantan, the vesicles are very immunogenic, that is, they have a high capacity to stimulate the immune response when in contact with the body. According to the institute, recent studies show that they have a great capacity to activate the body’s defense cells.
“All over the world, and also here in Brazil, different techniques are being tested. Many of them build on what was already developing for other viruses, such as the cause of the SARS outbreak. [síndrome respiratória aguda grave] in 2001. We hope they work, but the fact is, no one knows if they will really protect. In this time of pandemic, it is not too much to try different strategies. Our approach will take longer to get out, but if the ones being tested do not work, we already have plans B, C or D ”, highlighted researcher Luciana Cezar Cerqueira Leite, from the Vaccine Development Laboratory of the Butantan Institute.
The research is being supported by the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (Fapesp).
With Agência Brasil
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