Anyone have insight on other vaccine dev that utilizes nucleocapsid protein?

It appears to be more durable to variants as those with both spike and N (naturally immune) do better. Might be worth a small cap bio roll of dice IF IBIO can beat others to delivery of a longer lasting vaccine that performs better against variants.

https://ir.ibioinc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/157/ibio-reports-successful-covid-19-vaccine-toxicology-study

Quote:

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The Company also reported on development of IBIO-202, a subunit vaccine candidate that targets the nucleocapsid protein ("N protein") of SARS-CoV-2. N proteins of many coronaviruses are highly immunogenic and are expressed abundantly during infection. In addition, the N protein is more highly conserved than the S protein, and therefore new viral variants may be less likely to escape vaccine
protection.

"Immunization with more conserved sequences, such as the N protein, is expected to generate T-cells that could clear spike protein variant viruses in addition to the original virus," said Martin Brenner, DVM. Ph.D., iBio's CSO. "The N protein strategy of IBIO-202 is complementary to existing first-generation, S protein-directed vaccines and may be suitable as a more universal coronavirus vaccine."

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1) nucleocapsid protein enhances immunogenicity
2) nucleocapsid protein creates long term memory t-cells


4.40 mark

Nuance is important because immunology is hard.

Obviously getting infected with the actual virus gives more "triggers" for immune response.

On the other hand there's good evidence that the mRNA can give a stronger response *to the spike* than infection can.

So when the spike changes due to antigenic drift, your immune system has more tools to work with if you've been naturally infected vs vaccinated.

There's no hard info that I can find on how long immunity lasts for other human corona viruses. We know people get reinfected by the same four other viruses, maybe every 2 years or so. But we don't know if that's from antigenic drift or from waning immunity.

What would be interesting is a long term test of original type between recovered people and vaccinated people.

It's also plausible that some variants may fare better with natural immunity or vaccination or vice versa.

Pretty interesting stuff.