Microneedle Array vaccine. Photo by UPMC

Health networks with ties to two Chautauqua County hospitals are each taking steps to help deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

UPMC Chautauqua is part of the UPMC medical network. On Thursday, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists held a news conference in Pittsburgh to discuss a potential vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the Allegheny Health Network, of which Westfield Memorial Hospital is affiliated, is transforming one of its Pittsburgh properties into a COVID-19 test kit production center with the goal of creating 6,000 new kits by the end of the week and thousands in the weeks ahead.

UPMC STUDY

The study appears in The Lancet’s EBioMedicine and is the first peer-reviewed paper describing a possible vaccine for COVID-19. The University of Pittsburgh researchers were able to work quickly on the vaccine because they had done some work during earlier coronavirus epidemics. When tested in mice, delivered through a fingertip-sized patch of microscopic needles, the vaccine produces antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2 at quantities researchers think can neutralize the virus.

“We had previous experience on SARS-CoV in 2003 and MERS-CoV in 2014. These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus. We knew exactly where to fight this new virus,” said co-senior author Dr. Andrea Gambotto, associate professor of surgery at the Pitt School of Medicine. “That’s why it’s important to fund vaccine research. You never know where the next pandemic will come from.”

Compared to the experimental mRNA vaccine candidate that just entered clinical trials, the vaccine described in this paper — which the authors are calling PittCoVacc, short for Pittsburgh Coronavirus Vaccine — follows a more established approach, using lab-made pieces of viral protein to build immunity. It’s the same way the current flu shots work.

See Friday’s edition of The Post-Journal for complete coverage.