Accessibility Statement Skip Navigation
  • Why PRWeb
  • How It Works
  • Who Uses It
  • Pricing
  • Login
  • GDPR
  • Create a Free Account
Return to PRWeb homepage
  • News
  • Resources
  • Contact
When typing in this field, a list of search results will appear and be automatically updated as you type.

Searching for your content...

No results found. Please change your search terms and try again.
  • News in Focus
      • Browse News Releases

      • All News Releases
      • Multimedia Gallery

      • All Multimedia
      • All Photos
      • All Videos
  • Business & Money
      • Auto & Transportation

      • Aerospace, Defense
      • Air Freight
      • Airlines & Aviation
      • Automotive
      • Maritime & Shipbuilding
      • Railroads and Intermodal Transportation
      • Supply Chain/Logistics
      • Transportation, Trucking & Railroad
      • Travel
      • Trucking and Road Transportation
      • View All Auto & Transportation

      • Business Technology

      • Blockchain
      • Broadcast Tech
      • Computer & Electronics
      • Computer Hardware
      • Computer Software
      • Data Analytics
      • Electronic Commerce
      • Electronic Components
      • Electronic Design Automation
      • Financial Technology
      • High Tech Security
      • Internet Technology
      • Nanotechnology
      • Networks
      • Peripherals
      • Semiconductors
      • View All Business Technology

      • Entertain­ment & Media

      • Advertising
      • Art
      • Books
      • Entertainment
      • Film and Motion Picture
      • Magazines
      • Music
      • Publishing & Information Services
      • Radio & Podcast
      • Television
      • View All Entertain­ment & Media

      • Financial Services & Investing

      • Accounting News & Issues
      • Acquisitions, Mergers and Takeovers
      • Banking & Financial Services
      • Bankruptcy
      • Bond & Stock Ratings
      • Conference Call Announcements
      • Contracts
      • Cryptocurrency
      • Dividends
      • Earnings
      • Earnings Forecasts & Projections
      • Financing Agreements
      • Insurance
      • Investments Opinions
      • Joint Ventures
      • Mutual Funds
      • Private Placement
      • Real Estate
      • Restructuring & Recapitalization
      • Sales Reports
      • Shareholder Activism
      • Shareholder Meetings
      • Stock Offering
      • Stock Split
      • Venture Capital
      • View All Financial Services & Investing

      • General Business

      • Awards
      • Commercial Real Estate
      • Corporate Expansion
      • Earnings
      • Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
      • Human Resource & Workforce Management
      • Licensing
      • New Products & Services
      • Obituaries
      • Outsourcing Businesses
      • Overseas Real Estate (non-US)
      • Personnel Announcements
      • Real Estate Transactions
      • Residential Real Estate
      • Small Business Services
      • Socially Responsible Investing
      • Surveys, Polls and Research
      • Trade Show News
      • View All General Business

  • Science & Tech
      • Consumer Technology

      • Artificial Intelligence
      • Blockchain
      • Cloud Computing/Internet of Things
      • Computer Electronics
      • Computer Hardware
      • Computer Software
      • Consumer Electronics
      • Cryptocurrency
      • Data Analytics
      • Electronic Commerce
      • Electronic Gaming
      • Financial Technology
      • Mobile Entertainment
      • Multimedia & Internet
      • Peripherals
      • Social Media
      • STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math)
      • Supply Chain/Logistics
      • Wireless Communications
      • View All Consumer Technology

      • Energy & Natural Resources

      • Alternative Energies
      • Chemical
      • Electrical Utilities
      • Gas
      • General Manufacturing
      • Mining
      • Mining & Metals
      • Oil & Energy
      • Oil and Gas Discoveries
      • Utilities
      • Water Utilities
      • View All Energy & Natural Resources

      • Environ­ment

      • Conservation & Recycling
      • Environmental Issues
      • Environmental Policy
      • Environmental Products & Services
      • Green Technology
      • Natural Disasters
      • View All Environ­ment

      • Heavy Industry & Manufacturing

      • Aerospace & Defense
      • Agriculture
      • Chemical
      • Construction & Building
      • General Manufacturing
      • HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning)
      • Machinery
      • Machine Tools, Metalworking and Metallurgy
      • Mining
      • Mining & Metals
      • Paper, Forest Products & Containers
      • Precious Metals
      • Textiles
      • Tobacco
      • View All Heavy Industry & Manufacturing

      • Telecomm­unications

      • Carriers and Services
      • Mobile Entertainment
      • Networks
      • Peripherals
      • Telecommunications Equipment
      • Telecommunications Industry
      • VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol)
      • Wireless Communications
      • View All Telecomm­unications

  • Lifestyle & Health
      • Consumer Products & Retail

      • Animals & Pets
      • Beers, Wines and Spirits
      • Beverages
      • Bridal Services
      • Cannabis
      • Cosmetics and Personal Care
      • Fashion
      • Food & Beverages
      • Furniture and Furnishings
      • Home Improvement
      • Household, Consumer & Cosmetics
      • Household Products
      • Jewelry
      • Non-Alcoholic Beverages
      • Office Products
      • Organic Food
      • Product Recalls
      • Restaurants
      • Retail
      • Supermarkets
      • Toys
      • View All Consumer Products & Retail

      • Entertain­ment & Media

      • Advertising
      • Art
      • Books
      • Entertainment
      • Film and Motion Picture
      • Magazines
      • Music
      • Publishing & Information Services
      • Radio & Podcast
      • Television
      • View All Entertain­ment & Media

      • Health

      • Biometrics
      • Biotechnology
      • Clinical Trials & Medical Discoveries
      • Dentistry
      • FDA Approval
      • Fitness/Wellness
      • Health Care & Hospitals
      • Health Insurance
      • Infection Control
      • International Medical Approval
      • Medical Equipment
      • Medical Pharmaceuticals
      • Mental Health
      • Pharmaceuticals
      • Supplementary Medicine
      • View All Health

      • Sports

      • General Sports
      • Outdoors, Camping & Hiking
      • Sporting Events
      • Sports Equipment & Accessories
      • View All Sports

      • Travel

      • Amusement Parks and Tourist Attractions
      • Gambling & Casinos
      • Hotels and Resorts
      • Leisure & Tourism
      • Outdoors, Camping & Hiking
      • Passenger Aviation
      • Travel Industry
      • View All Travel

  • Policy & Public Interest
      • Policy & Public Interest

      • Advocacy Group Opinion
      • Animal Welfare
      • Congressional & Presidential Campaigns
      • Corporate Social Responsibility
      • Domestic Policy
      • Economic News, Trends, Analysis
      • Education
      • Environmental
      • European Government
      • FDA Approval
      • Federal and State Legislation
      • Federal Executive Branch & Agency
      • Foreign Policy & International Affairs
      • Homeland Security
      • Labor & Union
      • Legal Issues
      • Natural Disasters
      • Not For Profit
      • Patent Law
      • Public Safety
      • Trade Policy
      • U.S. State Policy
      • View All Policy & Public Interest

  • People & Culture
      • People & Culture

      • Aboriginal, First Nations & Native American
      • African American
      • Asian American
      • Children
      • Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
      • Hispanic
      • Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual
      • Men's Interest
      • People with Disabilities
      • Religion
      • Senior Citizens
      • Veterans
      • Women
      • View All People & Culture

  • Hamburger menu
  • Cision PRWeb provides efficient communication tools to continuously engage with target audiences across multiple online channels
  • Create a Free Account
    • ALL CONTACT INFO
    • Contact Us


      11AM ET Sunday – 8PM ET Friday

  • Send a Release
  • Sign up
  • Log in
  • Resources
  • RSS
  • GDPR
  • News in Focus
    • Browse All News
    • Multimedia Gallery
  • Business & Money
    • Auto & Transportation
    • Business Technology
    • Entertain­ment & Media
    • Financial Services & Investing
    • General Business
  • Science & Tech
    • Consumer Technology
    • Energy & Natural Resources
    • Environ­ment
    • Heavy Industry & Manufacturing
    • Telecomm­unications
  • Lifestyle & Health
    • Consumer Products & Retail
    • Entertain­ment & Media
    • Health
    • Sports
    • Travel
  • Policy & Public Interest
  • People & Culture
    • People & Culture
  • Send a Release
  • Sign up
  • Log in
  • Resources
  • RSS
  • GDPR
  • Send a Release
  • Sign up
  • Log in
  • Resources
  • RSS
  • GDPR
  • Send a Release
  • Sign up
  • Log in
  • Resources
  • RSS
  • GDPR

UMD Researcher Receives NIH Funding to Develop a Novel Approach to Vaccination Against a Wide Range of Enteroviruses in a Single Vaccine

With funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the University of Maryland (UMD) is leading research that will leverage the conserved replication machinery across all enteroviruses to try to confer broad-spectrum protection against diseases from polio to the common cold in a single vaccine product.


News provided by

University Of Maryland

Nov 18, 2020, 13:00 ET

Share this article

Share toX

Share this article

Share toX

Poliovirus 3-D illustration, Credit: Shutterstock
Poliovirus 3-D illustration, Credit: Shutterstock

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Nov. 18, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- With a new grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the University of Maryland (UMD) is working to develop a novel approach to vaccination with the potential to provide broad-spectrum protection against hundreds of viruses in a single vaccine, from polio to the common cold. Enteroviruses are a diverse group of viruses creating a huge public health burden, including the poliovirus, rhinoviruses that are the major cause of the common cold, enterovirus 71 that causes hand-foot-and-mouth disease in children, and others that are associated with the development of diabetes like coxsackieviruses. But because of this diversity, only polio and enterovirus 71 have currently available vaccine products. By changing the way vaccines are developed, targeting the conserved replication proteins that are common among most enteroviruses instead of the structural proteins that are distinct to each of the hundreds of known enteroviruses, UMD's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources will explore the potential to confer protection against a broad spectrum of enteroviruses in a single vaccine product, with major implications for public health.

"All viruses are pretty much like a nut," explains George Belov, associate professor in Veterinary Medicine at UMD and lead investigator of this work. "You have the shell or husk, and then the material inside the husk. On the outside, the structural proteins look sufficiently different so that that immune response developed against one virus does not work against another. But inside, you have pretty much the same core of proteins the virus uses to replicate. The replication machinery of all of those viruses is very similar. So the central idea of this grant is to switch from making vaccines that target those individual outer shells to vaccines that target conserved replication proteins to potentially generate a vaccine product that could be protective against a much broader spectrum of enteroviruses."

"The central idea is to switch from making vaccines that target individual outer shells [of viruses] to vaccines that target conserved replication proteins to potentially generate a vaccine product that could be protective against a much broader spectrum of enteroviruses,” says Belov.

Post this

The technology to achieve this goal has only recently become available with constructs that Belov and his team developed to redirect the immune response when encountering a new virus. "What you need to do is remove the input of the outer structural proteins and present the immune system with only the antigens that come from the conserved replication proteins," says Belov. "And we have a tool now to do this with constructs that don't express the structural proteins. We want to see if this will be protective and if that protection extends across a broader spectrum of enteroviruses."

This is a roughly $500K proof-of-concept grant that, if successful, could represent a shift in the way that vaccine products are produced and significantly reduce the burden of vaccination for a public that is increasingly concerned about the growing number of necessary vaccines.

"It's always a risk-benefit question, because the more vaccines you add, the chances of getting complications from a vaccine product are higher. The risk is very low as a whole, but there is no absolutely risk-free product, and there are always people that will respond differently. So if you can protect against multiple viruses in the same product, that is a very desirable thing."

With this initial funding in collaboration with Konstantin Chumakov at the Food and Drug Administration Office of Vaccines Research and Review, Belov and his team will be focusing on comparing this new vaccine approach to the existing vaccination products for poliovirus.

"You currently have three different serotypes of poliovirus with three vaccines, but the replication proteins are essentially the same," says Belov. "With this grant, we want to vaccinate with the construct we developed that expresses conserved proteins and see if the product will protect against those three different serotypes of polio compared to the current established vaccine products. We have good preliminary data that supports this idea, but the ultimate test is in how the animal immune system will respond. Further, we will test if it works against non-polio viruses. Enteroviruses are a very broad group of viruses, so broad protection is very valuable."

This problem is one that is common not just in enteroviruses, but across all forms of vaccine development. "If you want to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, for example, you currently have to make something that is specific to the structural proteins of COVID-19. But if you could make something that is effective across all types of coronaviruses by targeting the replication proteins, you could protect against a large spectrum of coronaviruses, the ones that we know of now and the ones that may come down the road as new virus threats."

Belov has been working with enteroviruses for more than 20 years and is interested in their functionality on a cellular level. "Vaccine development is very important, but enteroviruses are fascinating in terms of what they do with the cell. A cell with an enterovirus changes its metabolism completely in a matter of hours. It can completely overrun all cell control mechanisms, so the cell basically becomes a zombie that does nothing but produce copies of the virus. It's interesting for both the virologist and the cell biologist because the virus exposes the mechanisms that are difficult to observe in a noninfected cell. And that is my expertise - virus-cell interactions."

While this work has direct application in vaccine development, Belov stresses that it could not be achieved without basic fundamental research. "The most important thing in science is fundamental research because you are only as good in vaccine development and therapeutics as your understanding of how the mechanism works on a cellular level. Applied research without the fundamental research is like trying to fix a TV by just hitting it without understanding what's inside. Sometimes it works, but you don't know why it does or doesn't work without that deeper knowledge."

This work is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Award #R21AI153976.

Media Contact

Samantha Watters, University of Maryland College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, 301-405-2434, [email protected]

SOURCE University Of Maryland

Related Links

https://umd.edu/

Modal title

Contact PRWeb

  • 11AM ET Sunday – 8PM ET Friday
  • Contact Us

About PRWeb

  • About PRWeb
  • Partners
  • Partnership Programs
  • Editorial Guidelines
  • Resources

Why PRWeb

  • Why PRWeb
  • How It Works
  • Who Uses It
  • Pricing

Accounts

  • Create a Free Account
  • Log in
  • Contact Us

Do not sell or share my personal information:

  • Submit via [email protected] 
  • Call Privacy toll-free: 877-297-8921

Contact Cision

Products

About

My Services
  • All News Releases
  • Online Member Center
  • ProfNet
Cision Distribution Helpline
888-776-0942
  • Legal
  • Site Map
  • RSS
  • Cookie Settings
Copyright © 2025 Cision US Inc.