Mutation strain from India could kill current research efforts for coronavirus vaccine: report
April 14, 2020 / By Barnini Chakraborty | Fox News
A coronavirus strain isolated in India carried a mutation that could render current international vaccine efforts useless, researchers in Australia and Taiwan warned.
Scientists have been targeting the same process that allowed the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) to infect people but the mutation found throws them off course.
The scientists claim that the change had occurred in part of the spike protein that allows the novel coronavirus to bind with certain human cells. The structure targets cells containing ACE2, an enzyme found in the outer surface cells in the lungs, which allowed the SARS virus to infect people, the South China Morning Post first reported.
Researchers know a lot about the receptor and had been racing on antibodies to target it but the structural mutation might have put all the research into jeopardy.
