A single nasal spray vaccine could protect against all coughs, colds and flus, as well as bacterial lung infections, and may even ease allergies, say US researchers.
The team at Stanford University have tested their “universal vaccine” in animals and still need to do human clinical trials.
Their approach marks a “radical departure” from the way vaccines have been designed for more than 200 years, they say.
Experts in the field said the study was “really exciting” despite being at an early stage and could be a “major step forward”.
Current vaccines train the body to fight one single infection. A measles vaccine protects against only measles and a chickenpox vaccine protects against only chickenpox.
This is how immunisation has worked since Edward Jenner pioneered vaccines in the late 18th Century.
The approach described in the journal Sciencedoes not train the immune system. Instead it mimics the way immune cells communicate with each other.
It is given as a nasal spray and leaves white blood cells in our lungs – called macrophages – on “amber alert” and ready to jump into action no matter what infection tries to get in.
The effect lasted for around three months in animal experiments.
The researchers showed this heightened state of readiness led to a 100-to-1,000-fold reduction in viruses getting through the lungs and into the body.
And for those that did sneak through, the rest of the immune system was “poised, ready to fend off these in warp speed time” said Prof Bali Pulendran, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford.
The team showed the vaccine also protects against two species of bacteria – Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter baumannii.
Pulendran told the BBC: “This vaccine, what we term a universal vaccine, elicits a far broader response that is protective against not just the flu virus, not just the Covid virus, not just the common cold virus, but against virtually all viruses, and as many different bacteria as we’ve tested, and even allergens.
“The principle by which this vaccine works is a radical departure from the principle by which all vaccines have worked so far.”
The way it steers the immune system towards fighting an infection also seemed to reduce the response to house dust mite allergens – which are a trigger of allergic asthma.
“This is a really exciting piece of research,” says Prof Daniela Ferreira, a professor of vaccinology at University of Oxford, who was not involved in the study.
She said it could “change how we protect people from common coughs, colds and other respiratory infections” if the results are confirmed in human studies.
“One of the strengths” of the study was a clear explanation of how this new style of vaccine was working, she added.
Ferreira said the research “could mark a major step forward” offering protection against infections that “place such a heavy burden” on us all.
By BBC News
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