# Core D: Nonhuman Primates

> **NIH NIH P01** · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · 2022 · $1,527,673

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY – CORE D: NONHUMAN PRIMATES
COVID-19 has served as a wake-up call regarding the ability of a pathogen to rapidly spread to all confines of
the world and establish a lasting pandemic, with considerable disease, death, and economic losses. While
preceded by SARS and MERS, COVID-19 turned out markedly more contagious, and for all practical purposes
impervious to existing antiviral therapies, leading to extensive spreading as well as giving rise to
immunologically distinct mutants with higher transmission fitness. Moreover, COVID-19 is the third coronavirus
zoonosis in the 21s century that has been threatening humans, and wildlife and various species of bats in
particular have been demonstrated to harbor several other coronaviruses susceptible to transmitting and
generating additional epidemics/pandemics. The overarching goal of this program is to design and develop
both pan-sarbecovirus and pan-betacoronavirus vaccines to preemptively ward off such widely disseminated
zoonotic transmission, using a structure-based immunogen design approach.
The goal of Core D (Nonhuman Primates, Villinger) will be to evaluate the most promising immunogens initially
screened in rodents, combined with clinically relevant adjuvants to elicit protective humoral and cellular
immune responses in cynomolgus macaques, as a model more closely related to humans. The Core will be
responsible for conducting the nonhuman primate experiments, from animal procurement, animal
characterization, satisfying regulatory requirements, planning and execution of the primate immunizations and
sample collections, processing, storage and distributions to collaborating partners of the Program. Results of
these studies are expected to iteratively refine and optimize immunogen/adjuvant formulations and provide
data leading to the validation of a pan sarbecovirus and a pan betacoronavirus vaccine to be translated to the
clinic.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10425029
- **Project number:** 1P01AI167966-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Francois J Villinger
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $1,527,673
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-02 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10425029

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10425029, Core D: Nonhuman Primates (1P01AI167966-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10425029. Licensed CC0.

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