US: Texas scientist's work helped COVID-19 vaccine

Jason McLellan, a structural biology professor at the University of Texas in Austin is among a cohort of researchers that helped design critical components of the mRNA vaccine that Pfizer delivered thousands of doses to hospitals around the US, including the University of Texas at Austin's medical school.

"We were able to come up with a method of producing spike proteins from coronaviruses in a stabilized form, in a form that exists on the surface of the virus," the professor said.

McLellan's research factors into five COVID-19 vaccines that have started or completed "Phase 3" trials. Those include the newly deliver Pfizer vaccines, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and CureVac.

McLellan explained the use a version of the virus' spike protein created by his team together with the lab of Barney Graham, a National Institutes of Health scientist at the Vaccine Research Center.

McLellan has studied coronaviruses with Graham since 2013.

They have mapped in vigorous detail the structure that spike protein the virus uses to infect cells and have helped engineer the protein in such a way that it can be sued in vaccines to produce a strong antibody response.