Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3516-6852

Date of Award

12-13-2023

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Interdisciplinary Studies (MIS)

Department

Biomedical Sciences

First Advisor

Lanying Du

Second Advisor

Baozhong Wang

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak originating in Wuhan, China in late 2019, declared a pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organization, and led to widespread hospitalizations and deaths, prompting a global shutdown. As time progressed, variants emerged, and a solution was needed to prevent the spread. Vaccines and therapeutics were developed, but current vaccines are not able to neutralize all variants and do not have the capability to induce effective mucosal immunity. This study investigates two proteins targeting the receptor-binding domain of the wild-type strain and Omicron variant that are glycosylated and tagged with the Fc portion of human IgG. Three vaccine groups are studied and administered intranasally to induce local and systemic immunity. The findings show that both protein vaccines and their prime-boost vaccination induce high-level titers of specific antibodies with a balanced IgG1/IgG2 level, which could have the potential to be good vaccine candidates.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/36340288

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