MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Preclinical studies of the platforms created by the Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, which will make it possible, if necessary, to quickly adapt coronavirus vaccines to new strains, may begin in the summer, the center’s Director Alexander Gintsburg has told TASS.
"Another important area, as the emergence of new coronavirus variants shows, is the ability to quickly adapt vaccines to such variants. Two alternative platforms, which enable us to quickly change vaccines, have been developed in order to handle that task. We are moving on to preclinical studies of both platforms, which I hope will begin as early as this summer, maybe even in May," he said.
According to the World Health Organization, the VOC-202012/01 coronavirus variant emerged in the UK last September. The 501Y.V2 strain has been present in South Africa since early August, and the P.1 variant has been circulating in Brazil and Japan since December.
In late March, India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that a new coronavirus strain with mutations E484Q and L452R in the S protein had been identified. The presence of both mutations, which were earlier identified in other variants of the virus around the world, looks particularly alarming. These mutations are found in about 15%-20% of samples and are not found in the the British, South African and Brazilian strains.