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The “super-antigen” is developed using machine learning that analyses past and current outbreaks to determine what is essential for viruses to survive.
A human test suggested that a coronavirus vaccine made using the technology is safe, and more than 200 people are set to be recruited for an expanded study.
Experts hailed the method as a “big paradigm change” from the current “reactive” system, which “struggles to keep pace” as diseases evolve.
Current vaccines use antigens from specific strains of virus that have already been detected in humans.
However, the universal Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine, developed by the University of Cambridge in the UK and biotechnology company DIOSynVax, brings together features that are common to the whole family of viruses.
To achieve this, researchers gathered all available genetic sequence data on coronaviruses logged by surveillance programmes around the world to create a “super-antigen”.
“What that Covid pandemic taught us is how fast we can make vaccines, but we’re still using the old paradigm,” said Prof Jonathan Heeney of the University of Cambridge’s department of veterinary medicine.
“This is about making one vaccine that will get them all based on their relationships. You hoover up all the genomic sequences; what’s known from around the world, from past outbreaks and current outbreaks, and you do some basic structural science.
“We take all these different sequences … and we think, ‘OK, what’s consistent among them, what’s not changing, what is essential for their life?’ And that’s what we target.
“It not only predicts, but it targets what is essential for that virus family. We’re targeting something in a virus family, which the virus can’t change easily.”
The first test, the results of which were published in the Journal of Infection, involved 49 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 50 who received the vaccine in Cambridge and Southampton, UK. It was administered as DNA vaccine through a microfluid jet.
This is a needle-free method that uses a thin, high-pressure stream of liquid to push vaccine blueprints directly into skin cells.
Researchers declared the jab safe and said it had caused an immune response to Sars-CoV 2 and Sars, as well as to related viruses that are carried by bats and could potentially jump to humans.
A previous study in animals also found that the jab sparked a strong immune response against a range of coronaviruses.
A second round to testing is expected to include “upwards of 200 or more people”, Prof Heeney said.
He voiced hope that the technology can be a “game-changer” that makes vaccines “far better, broader, and give more robust protection”.
It could provide broad protection from thousands of variants of viruses such as Ebola.
Prof Heeney said that, having attended the scenes of a lot of outbreaks during his career, the one that “really left a mark” was the West African Ebola epidemic between 2013 and 2016.
Another outbreak of Ebola is currently taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus.
