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The Omicron coronavirus variant is spreading rapidly in several countries.

OMICRON LIKELY
TO WEAKEN COVID
VACCINE PROTECTION
Existing vaccines could be less effective against the fast-spreading coronavirus
variant, but boosters should improve immunity.
By Ewen Callaway

T
“We’re likely to see reduced effectiveness of “We still need to wait for more effectiveness
vaccines against preventing infection,” says data and clear signals from the places where
he fast-spreading Omicron SARS-CoV-2 Penny Moore, a virologist at the University of this is blowing up first,” says Ben Murrell, an
variant is highly likely to compromise Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, interdisciplinary virologist and immunologist
some of the protection from vaccines, who co-authored one of the studies. “I think it’s at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who
suggest the first laboratory studies of a strong argument to get boosters out there.” co-led one of the studies.
Omicron’s ability to evade immunity. The studies, which measure the capacity
But the preliminary results — released by of antibodies in people’s blood to block the Many mutations
teams in South Africa, Germany and Sweden, infection of cells in a dish, have not yet been Researchers in Botswana and South Africa
as well as by the Pfizer–BioNTech collaboration peer reviewed, and do not tell researchers identified Omicron in late November, and
— hint that protection from existing vaccines the extent to which vaccines’ ability to pro- teams worldwide have since been racing to
won’t be totally wiped out, and that boosters tect against COVID-19 — in particular, its most understand the variant’s properties and the
should improve immunity to Omicron. severe forms — could be compromised. risks that it poses. Preliminary data from South

Nature | Vol 600 | 16 December 2021 | 367

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News in focus
Africa and elsewhere suggest that the variant is say. Sigal’s team found that people who had the third vaccine”, said BioNTech’s chief
highly transmissible — spreading several times already been infected before vaccination executive, Uğur Şahin, at a press conference
faster than Delta — and might be able to infect tended to have higher levels of neutralizing on 8 December.
people who are immune to other variants. antibodies against Omicron than vaccinated Danny Altmann, an immunologist at
Omicron carries a large number of muta- people with no known history of infection. “I Imperial College London, agrees that jacking
tions in its spike protein — the prime target think retaining some neutralization against up antibody levels with booster shots should
of immune responses — and some of these Omicron can only be helpful,” says Moore, a help protect against Omicron, just as boosters
changes, when present in other variants, affect co-author on the study, whose lab is also work- have improved protection against the Delta
the ability of antibodies to recognize the virus ing on neutralization experiments. variant. “Omicron is scarier than anything
and block infection. we’ve known before, because it’s a little bit
Scientists used two types of laboratory “Omicron is scarier than worse still than Delta. But we were in quite a
assay to test how well Omicron can evade bad situation with Delta in unboosted popu-
neutralizing, or virus-blocking, antibodies.
anything we’ve known lations,” Altmann says.
One approach uses infectious SARS-CoV-2 before, because it’s a little bit Jesse Bloom, an evolutionary biologist at
particles, typically isolated from individuals worse still than Delta.” the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
infected with Omicron. The other relies on in Seattle, Washington, says that it will be
pseudovirus particles — genetically modified important to determine the extent to which
versions of another virus (often HIV) that use A previous case of COVID-19 isn’t the only immune mechanisms other than neutralizing
the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to infect cells. way to improve antibody levels against antibodies, such as T cells, ameliorate severe
The results from the four teams all suggest Omicron. The Pfizer–BioNTech study found disease caused by infection.
that Omicron blunts the potency of neutral- that people who had received a third dose of It will also be important to see further
izing antibodies more extensively than any its vaccine had neutralizing antibody levels studies confirming the latest results, because
other circulating SARS-CoV-2 variant. But against Omicron comparable to those, trig- variables such as the type of cell used can affect
the magnitude of Omicron’s impact varied gered by two vaccine doses, against other conclusions, says Pei-Yong Shi, a virologist
between the studies, which examined blood SARS-CoV-2 variants. On the basis of those at the University of Texas Medical Branch at
from people with different vaccination and results, “we expect significant protection Galveston. “In the next week or ten days, there
infection histories. against any type of COVID-19 mediated by will be a lot of confirmatory results coming
A study led by virologist Alex Sigal, at the Omicron in individuals who have received out,” he says.
Africa Health Research Institute in Durban,
South Africa, found that serum — the anti-
body-containing portion of blood — from

HALF OF CANCER STUDIES

12 people who received the Pfizer–BioNTech
vaccine was around 40 times less potent

FAIL HIGH-PROFILE
against Omicron, on average, than against
an earlier strain of SARS-CoV-2. That find-

REPLICATION TEST
ing was similar to the results from two other
studies: one reported by Pfizer and BioNTech
in an 8 December press release, and the
other released on Twitter and later posted
on medRxiv by virologist Sandra Ciesek at Barriers to reproducing preclinical results included
the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
(A. Wilhelm et al. Preprint at medRxiv https:// unhelpful author communication.
doi.org/g8sz; 2021).
By Asher Mullard

A
A fourth study, led by Murrell and virolo- The low replication rate is “frankly,
gist Daniel Sheward, also at the Karolinska outrageous”, says Glenn Begley, an oncologist
Institute, reported a smaller reduction in US$2-million, 8-year attempt to and co-founder of Parthenon Therapeutics
levels of Omicron-neutralizing antibodies replicate influential preclinical cancer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was not
in two groups of participants: 17 health-care research papers has released its final involved in the study. But it isn’t unexpected,
workers, who had all been previously infected, — and disquieting — results. Fewer he agrees. In 2012, while at the biotech firm
and 17 Swedish blood donors. The research- than half of the experiments assessed Amgen in Thousand Oaks, California, Begley’s
ers cannot determine the vaccine status of stood up to scrutiny, reports the Reproduci- team helped to draw attention to growing evi-
the anonymous blood donors, but say they bility Project: Cancer Biology (RPCB) team in dence of a ‘reproducibility crisis’, the concern
will soon update their paper with vaccination eLife1,2. The project — one of the most robust that many research findings cannot be repli-
information from the health-care workers. reproducibility studies performed so far — cated. Over the previous decade, his haema-
Despite differences in results — which are documented how hurdles including vague tology and oncology team had been able to
common in such virus-­neutralization assays — research protocols and uncooperative authors confirm the results of only 6 of the 53 (11%)
the labs’ conclusions are similar, and show that delayed the initiative by five years and halved landmark papers it assessed, despite working
Omicron’s effects on neutralizing antibodies its scope. alongside the papers’ original authors. Other
are “not complete knockouts”, says Murrell. “These results aren’t surprising. And, simul- analyses have reported low replication rates in
“The magnitude is still a little up for question.” taneously, they’re shocking,” says Brian Nosek, drug discovery, neuroscience and psychology.
an RPCB investigator and executive director of
Booster protection the Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, Double take
The results suggest that vaccines’ effective- Virginia. Although initially planning to repeat The RPCB — a partnership between the Center
ness is likely to be significantly modified by 193 experiments from 53 papers, the team ran for Open Science and Science Exchange, a
Omicron — but precisely how much is hard to just 50 experiments from 23 papers. marketplace for research services in Palo

368 | Nature | Vol 600 | 16 December 2021

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