HKUMed MFN v26i1

An intranasal spray vaccine developed by the HKUMed team was awarded the Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury at the 2021 Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days. The Vaccine Innovators A team of scientists with deep experience in infectious diseases, led by Professor Chen Honglin , has developed a new vaccine candidate against the COVID-19 virus that has attracted strong support at the regional and international levels. The vaccine is unique in being expressed from influenza viral vector and delivered via a nasal spray, which means the upper respiratory tract – the first line of immunity for infections – can be specifically targeted. Moreover, it can be produced by any influenza vaccine manufacturer, does not require special handling, and can be administered to all age groups. ‘We are slower compared to other vaccine frontrunners because a nasal spray vaccine takes longer to develop, but our vaccine can still play an important role,’ Professor Chen said. ‘It is being considered a second-wave vaccine that could boost immunity after people are vaccinated with other vaccines, or even if they are infected directly with the virus.’ The vaccine was awarded the Gold Medal with Congratulations of the Jury at the 2021 Inventions Geneva Evaluation Days in March. It is also the first vaccine ever to undergo a Phase One clinical trial in Hong Kong, which began in April and received an enthusiastic response of interest when recruiting volunteers (it has already had a Phase Two trial in Mainland China). On December 31, 2019, when Professor Chen was about to board a flight to the US, his phone rang and it was Professor Yuen Kwok-yung , calling about a new emerging infectious disease in Wuhan. ‘That day, we began to work on this virus,’ Professor Chen said. Fortunately, he already had a novel vaccine platform at hand. A few years earlier, he and his team had knocked out the NS1 gene from the NS segment in an influenza virus, identifying important adaptative mutations that help the virus replicate and evade its host’s immune system; they then inserted a Receptor-Binding-Domain (RBD) of MERS coronavirus in its place. The approach Feature 22