Antigenic Distance and Antigenic Field: New Concepts in Vaccine Development

报告题目：Antigenic Distance and Antigenic Field: New Concepts in Vaccine Development

报告人：胡叶凡   香港大学

报告时间：2023.08.31 10:30-11:00

报告地点：物理科技楼409

报告邀请人：赵永峰

报告摘要：Current COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against symptomatic disease, but repeated booster doses using ancestral strain-based vaccines offer limited extra protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC). To address this, we developed a vaccine strategy based on human serum sample results. Using antigenic distance, we selected optimised booster vaccine seed strains effective against both current and future VOCs. Our model suggests that a SARS-CoV-1-based booster vaccine has the potential to cover a broader range of VOCs. Candidate strains including ancestral SARS-CoV-2, Delta, Omicron (BA.1), SARS-CoV-1, and MERS-CoV were experimentally evaluated in mice following two-dose BNT162b2 vaccination. The SARS-CoV-1-based booster vaccine outperformed other candidates in terms of broader neutralising antibody level and duration. Based on the “antigenic distance”, we further introduce the concept of an “antigenic field” to illustrate protection coverage and strength induced by vaccines. Our study suggests a novel strategy of selecting booster vaccines based on antigenic distance. This theory may be useful in designing future vaccines rationally in a general sense.

报告人简介：胡叶凡，贝湾生物联合创始人。2017年本科毕业于复旦大学，随后获得香港政府博士奖金资助在香港大学攻读博士。致力于新型疫苗开发，实现免疫系统编程，在Cell Research、Cell Host & Microbe、ACS Infectious Diseases等期刊发表多篇高影响力文章，2020年至今论文总引用超500次。