Thread by @EricTopol

1. Instead of booster shots for the troublesome variants, why don't we develop bNAbs—broadly neutralizing antibodies—that are pan-coronavirus?
nature.com/articles/d4158…
Dennis Burton, my @scrippsresearch colleague, and I wrote about this @nature today

2. Coronaviruses, unlike HIV and influenza are "evasion-lite." Whereas HIV constantly evolves inside hosts w/ 100,000 different strains, and influenza has marked sequence variability. The marked success of the vaccines vs the #SARSCoV2 spike protein shows how it can be outwitted

3. A schematic of bNAbs—pan-virus vaccines has been furthered by a recent @PNASNews report of an HIV neutralizing antibody this is 5,000 fold more potent pnas.org/content/118/3/…

4. Dennis Burton's accompanying commentary
pnas.org/content/118/7/…
and a simplified diagram from @Wikipedia of targeting the Fc receptor whereby the antibody attaches to the host cell
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadly_n….

5. There is also considerable promise for such rational design: the RSV vaccine that has defied conventional vaccine development for >50 years, but now with encouraging Phase 2 trial results, in Phase 3

6. We call for an all-out effort and investment (consortium, gov't-industry supported) to develop bNAbs for the Sarbecovirus lineage of coronaviruses, then broaden to other virus families that have high likelihood potential for future pandemics

7. We think this would be a far more attractive approach than one like annual flu shots, trying to anticipate where #SARSCoV2 is headed, and, unlike influenza, the potential for a pan-coronavirus approach to be successful is quite alluring