CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, played an important role in evaluating heat-tolerant COVID-19 vaccine formulations developed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and biotech start-up Mynvax—against all current SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.
Most vaccines require refrigeration to remain effective, like Oxford-AstraZeneca which must be kept between 2-8°C and Pfizer which requires specialized cold storage at -70°C.
CSIRO scientists at the Australian Center for Disease Preparedness in Geelong contributed to the study by assessing vaccinated mice sera (blood samples) for efficacy against key coronavirus variants, including the Delta variant currently spreading globally including in Sydney.
Dr. S.S. Vasan, CSIRO’s COVID-19 project leader and co-author, said the Mynvax-vaccinated mice sera show a strong response to all variants of the live virus.
“Our data shows that all formulations of Mynvax tested result in antibodies capable of consistent and effective neutralization of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern,” Dr. Vasan said.
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