Coronavirus: US researchers develop possible vaccine with novel injection technology

• The potential vaccine is delivered through a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles
• When administered to mice, the researchers found ‘significantly high’ antibody responses to the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19

Researchers at University of Pittsburgh reported that they are working on a possible novel coronavirus vaccine through a new injection technology, building on work they had already been undertaking on a vaccine for Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), a deadly coronavirus outbreak that was first reported in 2012.
In a paper published in EBioMedicine – a peer reviewed journal published by The Lancet – the researchers described their work toward an experimental vaccine that produced antibodies specific to Covid-19 when tested in mice.
The potential vaccine is delivered through a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles, which the researchers call microneedle arrays. The needles are made of proteins and sugars, which dissolve under the skin.
Like many potential Covid-19 vaccines, the University of Pittsburgh team’s candidate targets the coronavirus’s spike protein, a crown-like protein on the virus’s surface that binds with receptors on a host cell and gains entry to deliver the viral genome into the cell.