Why an Operation Warp Speed-like effort may be needed for a universal 'holy grail' vaccine

With new coronavirus variants continuing to emerge, the development of a so-called universal vaccine offering broad, long-term protection needs to be the focus of an intense effort — one that may share characteristics of the widely hailed Operation Warp Speed, scientists suggest.

"The long-term need is like other vaccines, where the vaccine is there before the problem is there," Dr. Bruce Gellin, a world-renowned vaccine and infectious disease expert who is now chief of global public health strategy at the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation, told CBC News.

"It will require the best the science has to offer," Gellin said. "We need to be thinking longer term. The holy grail here is the vaccine that is broadly protective ... and has enough protection over a long time, ideally lifetime."

Operation Warp Speed was initiated by the U.S. administration under then-president Donald Trump to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines as fast as possible.

Gellin, a former director of the National Vaccine Program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently told the U.S.-based online site Politico that a universal vaccine, or pancoronavirus vaccine, "is probably the most important project that we can undertake."

He told CBC News that a different approach needs to be taken than the one that is used every year to battle influenza, in which the goal is to find the right formulation of the vaccine that best matches the flu viruses that are circulating.

"But in doing so, you're always being reactive," he said.

And that's what's currently happening with the coronavirus variants, Gellin said. The delta variant didn't need a delta-specific vaccine, and scientists are currently trying to determine whether the current vaccine is as effective with the omicron variant.

"We'll see what happens or if there's a need to do something else. But the point is, sooner or later, that's going to happen," he said." And the way these viruses operate ... you're always chasing the virus."

An effort is needed to produce a vaccine that is "broadly protective against whatever virus emerges" but that also has long-term protection, Gellin said, "so you wouldn't have to get boosters, because this virus is going to be with us for a long time."

The creation of such a vaccine will require a diverse range of expertise  — an "all-hands-on-deck" approach to see who might "have some perspective on the way the viruses work or the way immunity works that's going to help us to develop and design these vaccines," he said.

"We need to gain scientists across a variety of disciplines, including those new to the influenza field."

But Gellin said such an effort needs leadership — whether it comes from U.S. President Joe Biden, the National Institutes of Health or some scientific leader.

"It's going to require lots of resources, it's going to require organization to bring teams together who might not have worked together before to problem-solve."