Though the papers he contributed to, alongside the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, haven’t been used in any of the treatments or vaccines currently being used to fight the virus, he knows they’ll be invaluable when the next pandemic, or a new strain of the current virus, spreads.

Trudeau Institute has worked with Walter Reed before, researching a vaccine candidate for the Zika virus over the past six years.

Trudeau Institute President and Director Atsuo Kuki said researchers at Walter Reed were interested in Trudeau Institute’s specializations in animal testing of vaccines and treatments for viruses, and had visited the facility before the pandemic.

Kayvon Modjarrad, the founding director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases branch at Walter Reed, was one of the researchers who visited Trudeau Institute.

Atsuo Kuki poses in the Trudeau Institute in Saranac Lake, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017. (Provided photo)

When Operation Warp Speed came along — a federal initiative to research and create vaccines and treatments to combat the virus — Modjarrad became a member of the operation and gave Trudeau Institute a call to collaborate.

Reiley’s research started near the end of 2019, when the coronavirus was still mostly believed to be contained to China, where the outbreak started.

His study was completed in 2020 and published in journals later. Now that they’ve published these studies, they can talk about them.

Modjarrad is the principal author on both papers in Nature and Cell Reports.

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Versatile vaccines and treatments

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Walter Reed lost the race to be first to create a vaccine for COVID-19, but may have the opportunity to create long-lasting treatments in the “second wave of vaccines.”

This vaccine platform is interchangeable, Reiley said. Essentially, they created a base recipe. All that needs to be done is to take out the COVID-19 ingredient and put in whatever is needed.

“Plug and play,” Reiley called it.

That’s strongest thing about their vaccine.

It can quickly be molded to fight the “next pandemic,” whether that be a new coronavirus variant or a completely new virus.

He said these universal vaccines and treatments could be useful as society enters an epidemic phase of the virus.

The vaccine they worked on has been through Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials, getting to human trials once they knew it was safe, and testing efficacy trials with humans and animals at the same time.

“Antibody response the vaccine created was really effective at providing protection to the mice,” Reiley said, adding that the therapeutic treatment was also effective at creating antibodies.

He said the antibody treatments he tested had similar success and versatility. This treatment has not been in clinical trials yet, though.

Reiley said there is a possible problem with the current vaccines. There’s concern that the virus could mutate and the vaccines would have to keep being redeveloped against current strain, like vaccines against the seasonal flu.

Having a “universal vaccine” would be helpful. Kuki and Reiley said they are hoping for more funding to keep studying this kind of vaccine.

This would allow future vaccine developers to get their products to clinical trials much faster, since a large part of the work is already done for them.

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Catching up on research

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Reiley said they weren’t setting out immediately to create a universal vaccine, but it was in the back of their minds. As research was being done on the coronavirus, scientists knew it could probably mutate. A virus’s sole purpose is to continue to propagate, he said.

When the virus hit the United Kingdom and began mutating in 2020, he said they started focusing on addressing more than the parent strain.

Reiley said it was “great to be right at the forefront” of virus research.

“I’ve never seen the scientific community do what it did with the pandemic,” he said. “It really opened up its arms with the amount of sharing of information. It was just huge.”

Around the world, he said researchers were sharing information before publishing, posting it to industry blogs as soon as they could to let others research and vet the information as soon as possible.

In an emergency, he said scientists were of the opinion that they couldn’t wait for peer review — they had to put their research out, see if it holds up and hope that it could lead to a crucial discovery.

“Going into this pandemic, preparedness was not where it should have been,” Reiley said.

There hadn’t been a pandemic of this magnitude in over 100 years.

“It was always in the back of scientists’ minds, but it’s a hard thing to fund until it comes to the forefront,” he said.

Reiley said researchers are now playing catch-up and seeking out broad solutions while there’s funding for it.

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Vaccine hesitancy

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The response to the pandemic has been marked by vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccine movements. But Reiley hopes people realize that the vaccines are safe and the most effective way to stay healthy.

“Vaccines provide protection, they really do,” he said.

He said time tends to make people forget all the horrible diseases our ancestors suffered and died from — polio, measles, mumps and rubella, which are no longer as common.

“Vaccines have made these pathogens a thing of the past for the majority of people,” Reiley said.

But COVID-19 posed a new threat and has now killed over 1 million people in the U.S. and an estimated 15 million people worldwide, according to estimates from the World Health Organization.

Reiley said he understands why some people have vaccine hesitancy. There was inaccurate vaccine literature in the past that has tainted the views of some people, he said, and there is always the continuing ethical debate of personal rights. He said there are personal rights, but individuals’ choices impact others.

Kuki said that not becoming a carrier of the virus helps others immensely. Even if someone is not at risk of serious illness, he said getting the vaccine can still protect their entire community.

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Trudeau changes and grows

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Kuki describes three phases of “Trudeau.”

“Trudeau 1.0” was Edward Livingston Trudeau, the doctor himself, doing tuberculosis research and treatments from his office and home in Saranac Lake in the late 1800s.

Trudeau 2.0 started when the Trudeau Institute was founded in 1964 by the famous doctor’s grandson, Frank Trudeau.

Kuki said Trudeau 3.0 started in 2016 and was an effort to “punch above (their) weight” and collaborate on the global scale by providing very focused research. He said the institute’s goal has been to provide valuable research and work in big projects.

Reiley said Trudeau Institute has a good record of working with pathogens in biosafety labs and doing large-scale, quick, quality work.

Because the institute is relatively small, he said that makes it easier to share data in real time. During a pandemic, he said saving time is very important.

Reiley said he’s thankful for the work of Trudeau Institute staff and the large team of researchers they’re connected to around the country.

Kuki said he hopes to continue partnering with Walter Reed.

“We pick ’em well,” he said.

Reiley and Kuki said they always hope against pandemics, but if another one comes, they believe because of the research they contributed to during the past two years, the scientific community will be more prepared to respond to it.

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