New research suggests that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may protect against a mutation found in two highly contagious variants of the coronavirus that broke out in Britain and South Africa.
Those variants are of global concern. They both share a common mutation called N501Y, a small change in one spot of the spike protein that envelops the virus. That change is believed to be the reason they can spread so easily.
Most vaccines being rolled out around the world train the body to recognize and fight that peak protein. Pfizer worked with researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for lab tests to see if the mutation affected the vaccine’s ability to do that.
They used blood samples from 20 people who received the vaccine, made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, in a large study of the injections. Antibodies from those vaccine recipients have successfully fended off the virus in lab dishes, according to the study posted late Thursday on an online site for researchers.
The research is preliminary and has not yet been reviewed by experts, an important step for medical research.
But “it was a very reassuring finding that at least this mutation, which people were most concerned about, doesn’t appear to be a problem” for the vaccine, said Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Philip Dormitzer.
Viruses constantly undergo minor changes as they spread from person to person. Scientists have used these small changes to track how the coronavirus has moved around the world since it was first discovered in China about a year ago.
British scientists have said the variant found in the UK – which has become the dominant type in parts of England – still appears to be susceptible to vaccines. That mutant has now been found in the US and many other countries.
But the variant first discovered in South Africa has an additional mutation that scientists are on the lookout for, one called E484K.
The Pfizer study found that the vaccine appeared to work against 15 additional possible virus mutations, but E484K was not one of those tested. Dormitzer said it’s next on the list.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, recently said vaccines are designed to recognize multiple parts of the spike protein, making it unlikely that a single mutation is enough to block them. But scientists around the world are researching different vaccines to find out.
Dormitzer said that if the virus eventually mutates enough that the vaccine needs to be modified – just as flu shots are modified most years – that adapting the recipe wouldn’t be difficult for his company and the like to incorporate. The vaccine is made with a piece of the virus’s genetic code, which can be easily switched, although it is not clear what additional testing regulators would need to make such a change.
Dormitzer said this was just the beginning “of continuous monitoring of virus changes to see if they could affect vaccination coverage.”
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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science is supported by the Science Education Department of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content.