Professor Jonhwa Lee (College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Veterinary Medicine) and his research team have developed a novel oral vaccine designed to address shortcomings of current COVID-19 vaccines amid widespread breakthrough infections. The work is attracting attention from the global academic community.

Current Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are administered by intramuscular injection and induce relatively strong antibody responses, but they do not effectively elicit mucosal immunity. Because the coronavirus enters via the oral or nasal routes, induction of strong mucosal immunity in the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts is essential. One reason for the high number of breakthrough infections is insufficient mucosal induction.

To address these shortcomings, the team created the world's first universal vector platform that expresses high concentrations of protein via self-replicating mRNA in the cytoplasm. Using Salmonella, an orally infectious bacterium, they deliver this mRNA vaccine to target cells, naturally inducing robust mucosal immunity and thereby effectively defending against the coronavirus.

The research findings were recently published in Gut Microbes (IF:10.245), Biomaterials (IF: 12.479), Journal of Advanced Research (IF:10.479), and Molecular Therapy (IF:11.454).

In particular, News Medical, a leading UK-based medical news outlet, covered the study in an article highlighting the team's development of a novel oral vaccine for COVID-19 prevention. Headquartered in the UK, the outlet reportedly has more than 120 million subscribers worldwide annually.

Professor Jonhwa Lee explained, "The development of this oral vaccine could be a major turning point in the current COVID-19 situation. First, injectable intramuscular vaccines like those currently in use have the drawback that achieving a high level of nationwide vaccination completion can take at least several months, during which another variant may emerge. By contrast, this oral administration method enables many people to complete individual oral dosing easily within days and, in an instant, form population-level protection, minimizing the emergence of variant viruses."