Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.07.30.229120v1?rss=1 Authors: Sun, W., McCroskery, S., Liu, W.-C., Leist, S. R., Liu, Y., Albrecht, R. A., Slamanig, S., Oliva, J., Amanat, F., Schaefer, A., Dinnon, K. H., Innis, B. L., Garcia-Sastre, A., Krammer, F., Baric, R. S., Palese, P. Abstract: A successful SARS-CoV-2 vaccine must be not only safe and protective but must also meet the demand on a global scale at low cost. Using the current influenza virus vaccine production capacity to manufacture an egg-based inactivated Newcastle disease virus (NDV)/SARS-CoV-2 vaccine would meet that challenge. Here, we report pre-clinical evaluations of an inactivated NDV chimera stably expressing the membrane-anchored form of the spike (NDV-S) as a potent COVID-19 vaccine in mice and hamsters. The inactivated NDV-S vaccine was immunogenic, inducing strong binding and/or neutralizing antibodies in both animal models. More importantly, the inactivated NDV-S vaccine protected animals from SARS-CoV-2 infections or significantly attenuated SARS-CoV-2 induced disease. In the presence of an adjuvant, antigen-sparing could be achieved, which would further reduce the cost while maintaining the protective efficacy of the vaccine. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info