Stanford Medicine researchers claim they’ve invented a “universal vaccine formula” that protects mice against a wide range of allergens, bacteria, and respiratory viruses. And instead of being administered by injection, the potential cure-all can be taken as a simple nasal spray.
If the formula, detailed in a recent study published in Science, could be applied to humans, it would be game-changer for people vulnerable to seasonal respiratory infections, the authors say. No more repeated trips to the doctor to get the jab; just a few whiffs of the stuff, and you’d be immune to all kinds of lung ailments for months at a time.
“Imagine getting a nasal spray in the fall months that protects you from all respiratory viruses including COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and the common cold, as well as bacterial pneumonia and early spring allergens,” study senior author Bali Pulendran, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford Medicine, said in a statement about the work. “That would transform medical practice.”
Traditionally, vaccines work by mimicking a specific pathogen so that your body can learn to fight a weakened form of the disease. But the specificity can be the vaccine’s undoing: if the disease mutates, or if a new bug emerges, the vaccine won’t be effective, which is why we get updated flu shots every year.
But the Stanford team’s vaccine is “unlike any vaccine used today,” the institution claims. Instead of mimicking the pathogen, it mimics the signals used by immune cells to communicate with each other as they fight an infection. In particular, the approach focuses on what’s known as the innate immune system, which acts like the body’s paramedics, who are on the scene of an infection immediately. Then the adaptive immune system, which would be something like the specialized doctors at a hospital in this analogy, comes in later to provide long-term treatment.
The innate immune system has traditionally been overlooked since it only provides short-term protection. But the Stanford researchers saw a glimmer of promise in its versatility.
“What’s remarkable about the innate system is that it can protect against a broad range of different microbes,” Pulendran said.
This proved to be more than just a hunch when, in a 2023 study, Pulendran found that both the innate and adaptive immune response in mice triggered by a tuberculosis vaccine lasted for several months. The adaptive system’s T-cells that were sent to the lungs were sending signals to the innate immune cells to keep the innate system online, they found. And with the innate system active, the mice were protected against several strains of coronavirus for several months.
In the new study, the team built on these findings by creating a new vaccine with a protein from eggs that stimulates T-cells, which would help sustain the innate response. They then gave mice a dose of the vaccine in their noses before exposing them to various strains of coronavirus. While the unvaccinated mice fell ill, lost weight, and sometimes perished, the mice that received the vaccination showed virtually no symptoms and were protected for at least three months. When they repeated this experiment with other respiratory infections like Staphylococcus aureus, the mice were also protected. Ditto for allergens.
“I think what we have is a universal vaccine against diverse respiratory threats,” Pulendran said.
It’s an extremely promising avenue of research. The next step, Pulendran says, it to begin human trials, with the hopes that in five to seven years, a final version of the universal vaccine will be available.
Some experts are skeptical. Florian Krammer, a vaccinologist from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, warned Science that our body’s immune response may already be at its limits and can’t be boosted much more. Still, she agreed that the vaccine “should be tested in humans.”
More on medicine: Single Injection Appears to Prevent Virtually All Allergic Reactions
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