New coronaviruses armed with the capacity to cause severe human disease are becoming more frequent, raising the stakes for global preparedness, along with a need for a vaccine that could broadly protect against the most dangerous ones, such as SARS-CoV-2.

To help jump-start the process, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota announced today that it has received $1 million in grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create a Coronavirus Vaccines Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap.

The grants will support an R&D roadmap for developing vaccines that provide broad protection against betacoronaviruses or a subset of betacoronaviruses, which mainly circulate in bats and rodents, but can spill over into human populations. Over the past few years, health groups have tapped CIDRAP to develop similar vaccine roadmaps for influenza, Zika virus, Nipah virus and Ebola/Marburg viruses.

Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, CIDRAP's director, said current COVID-19 vaccines may not protect against future SARS-CoV-2 variants, and the threat of a novel virus spillover looms in animal populations.

Read more...