The Sputnik V vaccine has been modified to combat the Delta variant of COVID-19 coronavirus infection, said the vaccine developer, the Gamaleya Center.
“There is already a vaccine design in the refrigerator,” the head of the center, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Gintsburg, told Interfax. However, he admitted that it is not yet known how effective such an option would be.
Experts point out that so far all existing COVID-19 vaccines are less effective against the Indian variant, or “delta”.
Gunzburg recalled that the Gamaleya Center’s proposal for Pfizer / BioNTech may have prospects – to use Sputnik Light (the first component of Sputnik V) as a booster.
Pfizer really needs this, because it has one fixed conformation, while Sputnik, like a natural S-protein, has many of them. Therefore, the spectrum of neutralizing antibodies, which will be formed on this and this S-protein, in the case of “Sputnik” is much wider. In this case, such a “cocktail” will be more effective against a specific “delta” variant,” said Gunzburg.
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