Publication highlights

Researchers in the Kassiotis lab have shown that a specific area of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is a promising target for a pan-coronavirus vaccine that could offer some protection against new virus variants, common colds, and help prepare for future pandemics.

As part of the CAPTURE study, researchers in collaboration with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) UCLH Biomedical Research Centre found that antibodies generated in people who had received only two doses of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine or the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were less able to neutralise the Omicron variant as compared to the Alpha and Delta variants. They also found that antibody levels dropped off in the first three months following the second dose but that a third ‘booster’ dose raised levels of antibodies that effectively neutralise the Omicron variant.

Researchers in the Reis e Sousa lab have found how the immune system triggers an ‘emergency’ dendritic cell response during infection. Dendritic cells have an important role in the immune system, detecting infectious bacteria, fungi or viruses that have entered the body and alerting T cells which recognise and attack the invader. However, there are few dendritic cells in healthy tissue like the lungs which means that, on infection, their numbers need to be boosted. In their study, the team monitored dendritic cells in mice infected with flu virus and found that, after infection, new dendritic cells are released from the bone marrow in response to a chemokine ‘distress’ signal which directs them to the site of infection.

As part of the largest study to comprehensively evaluate the response of patients with cancer to COVID-19 vaccines, researchers in the Turajlic lab monitored the immune response of 585 patients with different types of cancer after receiving a first and second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
They found that patients with blood cancer were less likely to have antibodies than individuals of a similar age without cancer or with solid cancer, and when they did have antibodies, the levels were lower against all variants.

Two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine induce lower levels of antibodies that are able to recognise and fight the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) than against other strains.

The Legacy study team found that two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine generate lower levels of antibodies able to recognise the Delta variant, in comparison with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Their results also show that antibody levels vary considerably depending on likely prior infection with SARS-CoV-2.

An example of our work on COVID-19 and of the flexible and collaborative nature of the Crick, involving several labs within the Crick and our collaborating universities and university hospitals. In this work, we described the discovery of pre-existing binding and neutralising antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in uninfected and unexposed individuals. These antibodies, likely induced by exposure to seasonal coronaviruses, are present in a small percent of adults but in the majority of children, consistent with the relative sparing of the latter from the severe form of COVID-19