Current vaccines against COVID-19 target the protein “spike”, which mutates regularly, creating variants such as omicron, which decrease the effectiveness of vaccines against symptomatic infection.
“In contrast, the internal proteins targeted by the protective T cells that we have identified mutate much less,” says study co-author Professor Ajit Lalvani.
“Consequently, they are highly conserved among the various SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron. Therefore, new vaccines that include these conserved internal proteins would induce broadly protective T-cell responses that should protect against current and future variants of SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 “.