The Vaccine Hunters -2

Nianshuang Wang,
(The man who tweaked the virus.)

“Scientists who made the Covid Vaccine possible.“

[ The heart of the all synthetic Covid vaccines targeting the spike protein of the Covid-19 virus contains one common secret: A synthetic spike protein known as 2 Proline mutated Spike genome.

For the first time in the history of immunisation, it so happened that none of the researchers of the any of the vaccine manufacturers of USA : Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson and Novovax had worked with a Corona virus ( live or dead) in their lab. Billion dollars of vaccine were created without touching the original virus. The live Corona Virus genome was extremely unstable inside lab. it was almost impossible to work with in artificial conditions..

The credit of designing an extremely stable, modifiable, friendly genome sequence of the elusive virus goes to a Chinese immigrant research associate Nianshuang Wang. It took him less than 48 hours to create the prototype inside a US lab. But he had already spent 8 frustrating years of hard research work and had almost lost his job before that peak 48 hours super credit.

Yes, Nianshuang Wang had been working on the elusive Spike protein of the MERS ( another corona pandemic that occurred in 2013) for 8 years. Just when had he achieved his target, the MERS Pandemic vanished on its own. His financiers dropped the idea of a Corona vaccine.

Wang had been jobless since then and was about to be deported to China because his PHD visa was about to expire.

Just then the biggest Corona virus pandemic started. ]

Professor Mclellan of Dartmouth College in the US looked at the University psychiatrist and then at “Nianshuang Wang”.
Wang was a Chinese immigrant research associate in his lab working on the spike protein of Corona Virus. it was 2017.
This young, uncouth son of a rural Chinese farmer who is now slumped into the shape of a frightened pup is his most brilliant structural biologist student.

“Reactive depression” The psychiatrist mouthed and bent down to write a prescription.
…
Young Wang had enough reasons to be mortally depressed.

China, 2005- 2013

Nianshuang Wang was the son of an extremely poor farmer in the eastern province of Shandong. His childhood was spent helping his father in tilling land, carrying water and planting seeds. Often the family had to go without food. But his illiterate mother would never allow the son to bunk the village school. Wang hated the school for two reasons. The biting cold of the bare mud building and the stinging cane of its teachers. The only teaching equipment the school had is the fearful cane and the sparse teachers would use it on the back and palms of Wang and all profusely. In the dead of night his mother would massage hot oil on the angry cane marks on the back of Wang, crying and dreaming that one day his son would be able to leave the drudgery and the hunger of the rural field of Shandong.

Had she ever dreamt that her son will one day be the greatest gift to the mankind in its fight against the Covid-19 ?

Those desperate dreams of an illiterate farm lady mustered enough strength to put Wang in the Ocean University of China. His friends thought him to be stupid. He lacked the basic urban skills. He would hesitate to ride a bus, ( He won’t reveal that he didn’t have coins for the bus fare.) did not know how to play a video game or use social media. He remained a solitary stranger in the campus but got a scholarship to the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing for his doctorate in structural biology. There he worked on designing a monoclonal antibody against a dreadful MERS virus. 

USA 2014 – 2016

It was 2013. A deadly coronavirus had jumped from the camels of Saudi Arabia and was killing humans from Middle East to China and Korea. Professor Jason McLellan was impressed and had accepted him as a research associate in his team working for a vaccine against MERS. 

The team was trying to make vaccine against the MERS and has successfully patented the process. But it was not able to catch the spike protein in its wild form. The spike protein notoriously changes its shape from a jumbled ball of mushroom like silk thread when it makes contact with human cell immediately into a rod that penetrates the cell and takes it over. A successful vaccine needed the virgin spike in its mushroom avatar not the rod which already has infected the cell. This was the most elusive part of a successful vaccine. Wang was hired for exactly this piece of work. He had to lock the spike protein in its pre attachment shape. 

Wang would work alone for days together non stop without seeing any one. After more than 100 failed attempts, one fine morning he put two Proline moieties at the two ends of the spike thread. It struck. Eureka. Wang had done the unthinkable. He was the first person on the earth to have secured the elusive spike protein of a corona virus to two pillars of rigid proline amino acids.

Proline modification of Spike protein was patented and a vaccine was prepared.

But then the MERS virus disappeared. The grants for research on Coronavirus dried. The team was dismantled. Dr Mclellan left Dartmouth to join NIH.

USA 2016- 2020

By this time Nianshuang Wang has married and had a kid. His post doc work was suspended. His work permit was going to be over. Then the Trump administration drastically reduced the immigrant scientist quota. Wang’s hope of a green card became a distant mirage. A solitary introvert, wang’s only escape was his work. He couldn’t imagine returning back to China empty hand with two more mouths to feed. He started shouting at his wife. When Mclellan visited him, he quarrelled with him, the only two people on this earth who cared for him. 

On that very day his parents set him a message about a dreadful pneumonia that has made thousands sick in his native

USA, JANUARY 2021

It is now 8 long years that Wang had been working on the spike protein of the elusive coronavirus. On January 10, 2021, the Chinese scientists uploaded the genetic sequences of a novel coronavirus to Genbank, an open access website.

It was Saturday night at USA. Scientists knew that when it comes to immunogenicity, not only the exact sequence of the antigen matters, but also the shape of the protein ( Quartenary structure) is also important. Adding two Prolines- the most rigid of the 20 amino acids could stabilise the protein and allow scientists to work further on it.

Jason McLellan knew the medicine to cure the depression of Nianshuang Wang. He called him in the middle of night and handed him the structure. you must come out with tas many workable vaccine candidates as soon as possible. the whole world depends on them. He added as he whispered. That was enough. A mortally depressed Wang wake up and went down to the basement of structural lab section. His work station where he worked alone. That was his trade mark. He had a ready stock of Chinese noodles, fresh eggs and a micro oven inside his lab. 

Nianshuang Wang remained for 48 hours glued to his work bench without seeing any human face and surviving only on bowls of noodle.  When the regular lab workers joined him on Monday morning, Wang had finished 8 prototypes of the proline modification of the spike protein ( famously known as the 2P mutant Spike). Each one of them was the exact and flawless model of the elusive spikes of the wild SARS virus frozen on the frame of two rigid proline amino acids

These 2P MUTANTs are being used by Moderna, Pfizer, J&J, Novavax to formulate the vaccine within 6 months.

JULY 2021, The world sees the first Covid Vaccine on trial within 6 month of its unfolding in china.

In July 2021, these 2P mutant spikes are injected into thousands of humans who had volunteered for a clinical trial that resulted in 90% protection against the killer pneumonia.

The immunity of 4 billion people on this planet woe a tiny part to the illiterate farm hand lady of Shandong province of China and his son Nianshuang Wang.