Groundbreaking Marburg vaccine research by UTMB and Moderna published in distinguished medical journal

A research paper co-authored by a team led by Dr. Alexander Bukreyev from the University of Texas Medical Branch, in collaboration with Moderna, finds that simple mRNA vaccines can be just as effective-or even more effective-than more complex ones that try to mimic a whole virus like Marburg.

The UTMB team's paper on the research that determined that a simpler mRNA vaccine provides better immune response and protection than a more complex version, especially at lower doses, recently was published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The co-senior author of the study, Bukreyev is the associate director at the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases at UTMB. Dr. Andrea Carfi, the other co-senior author, is chief scientific officer, Infectious Disease, at Moderna. The lead author on the paper is UTMB research scientist Dr. Chandru Subramani.

The research involved development of a 2-component mRNA vaccine encoding full-length glycoprotein (GP) and VP40 (a virus-like particle or VLP) or GP alone. The vaccines were tested in guinea pigs. At the highest dose, both vaccines protected fully, although the VLP vaccine elicited a slightly lower humoral response than did the GP-only mRNA vaccine.

However, at low doses, GP-only mRNA provided 100% protection, whereas the VLP vaccine provided only partial protection. Overall, the VLP mRNA vaccine was less immunogenic and protective, whereas the GP-only mRNA vaccine conferred robust protection with a dose of as little as 1 microgram in guinea pigs.

"The two vaccines differed not only by immunogenicity but also by profiles of T cell and cytokine responses in vaccinated animals," Subramani said.

Overall, the data demonstrate "another example of excellent performance of the mRNA vaccine platform," Carfi added.
This research shows that more complex isn't always better and that simpler solutions can translate to faster, cheaper vaccine development and the use of lower-dose vaccines.

"These results were truly unexpected, as the VLP platform is typically more immunogenic," Bukreyev said.

For future outbreaks (like Marburg or even new viruses), simple, targeted mRNA vaccines might be the smartest and fastest approach-without needing to over-engineer complex solutions, ensuring quicker protection for more people worldwide.

Read the Journal of Clinical Investigation article here

Additional co-authors of this paper include Michelle Meyer, Matthew Hyde, Margaret Comeaux, Haiping Hao, Vsevolod Popov and Harshwardhan Thaker from UTMB; James Crowe Jr. from Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and Sunny Himansu from Moderna.