New Delhi: Scientists have found evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine co-developed by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech may protect against the novel coronavirus variant which originated in the UK and has been reported in several parts of the world, including India.
In a yet-to-be peer-reviewed research, scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch in the US, tested the ability of blood serum from 20 individuals immunised with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to neutralise coronavirus engineered to carry the new mutations.
“Rapidly spreading variants of SARS-CoV-2 that have arisen in the UK and South Africa share the spike N501Y substitution, which is of particular concern because it is located in the viral receptor binding site for cell entry and increases binding to the receptor,” the scientists noted in the study.
In these mutant forms, the molecule asparagine in the 501st position of the viral spike protein’s amino acid…