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Design And Preclinical Evaluation Of A Universal Sars-Cov-2 Mrna Vaccine, Jane Qin, Ju Hyeong Jeon, Jiangsheng Xu, Laura Katherine Langston, Ramesh Marasini, Stephanie Mou, Brian Montoya, Carolina R Melo-Silva, Hyo Jin Jeon, Tianyi Zhu, Luis J. Sigal, Renhuan Xu, Huabin Zhu

Department of Microbiology and Immunology Faculty Papers

Because of the rapid mutations of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), an effective vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 variants is needed to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). T cells, in addition to neutralizing antibodies, are an important component of naturally acquired protective immunity, and a number of studies have shown that T cells induced by natural infection or vaccination contribute significantly to protection against several viral infections including SARS-CoV-2. However, it has never been tested whether a T cell-inducing vaccine can provide significant protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection in the absence of preexisting antibodies. In this study, we designed and evaluated …