Vaccine Coronaviral Structure

About Vaccine Coronaviral Structure

The determination of the prefusion stabilized coronavirus spike protein structure by Jason McLellan, Barney Graham, and Andrew Ward in 2017 was a turning point in coronavirus vaccine development. The team engineered a double proline mutation that locked the spike protein in its prefusion conformation, exposing key neutralization sites. This structure was used by Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, and Novavax for their COVID vaccines. The prefusion stabilization technology was originally developed for RSV and MERS. When the SARS-CoV-2 genome was published on January 10, 2020, Moderna designed its mRNA vaccine in 2 days using the prefusion structure. The work built on earlier prefusion stabilization research published in 2017. The discovery demonstrates how basic structural biology research enables rapid vaccine development during pandemics. McLellan and Graham have received multiple awards for this work.