QAU researchers identify novel vaccine candidates against virus.

ISLAMABAD -- A team of researchers at the Quaid-i-Azam University National Centre for Bioinformatics Computational Biology Lab have identified novel vaccine candidates against the coronavirus.

The researchers have utilised indigenously developed computational methods to design a novel vaccine construct available at the lab to identify novel multi-epitope based vaccine candidates, a statement issued by the university on Wednesday said.

It said that the study highlights details of extensive computational experiments for the identification of novel vaccine candidates through vaccinomics.

'Immunoinformatics approaches were utilized for the purpose of prioritizing potential vaccine candidates against Covid-19 considering their ease of use in further investigations, better delivery and efficient immune processing of epitopes,' the statement said.

It added that the study was recently published in the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

'According to the published work, designing of vaccination strategies that target immune response focusing on these conserved epitopes could generate immunity that provide cross protection across Betacoronaviruses,' the statement said.

Dr Sikander Azam, who supervised the team of researchers, said that promising computational findings may deliver preliminary epitopes set for a vaccine against the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, a probable prevention strategy discussed in this study for human beings to avoid becoming a reason for the extinction of various species either by hunting and/or over utilising other mammals which could be a reason for resistance both from microbes and other animal species of this kingdom, he said.

Dr Azam also highlighted the presence of the theory of retaliation and emphasised the need for...