Special Issue "Coronaviruses, Animal Models and Vaccines: Current Landscape and Future Prospects"

Dear Colleagues,

Three highly pathogenic human coronavirus (hCoV) outbreaks have been reported since 2002. Notably, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has caused an ongoing pandemic of unprecedented scale. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a collaborative international taskforce has been established to develop animal models to aid in the search for vaccines and antivirals against SARS-CoV-2 as an effort to combat COVID-19. These animal models have been invaluable for the preclinical development of highly efficacious vaccines. As we progress to the third year of the pandemic, highly immunoevasive variants of concern (VOCs) have emerged, challenging vaccine efficacy, as evidenced by the increasing number of vaccine breakthrough infections. This has prompted reevaluation of the current vaccine regimen and the development of updated vaccines that better protect against the emergence of novel VOCs.

In this Special Issue, we aim to summarize the current knowledge on vaccine design, vaccine-induced immunity, efficacy, correlates of protection against VOCs, and currently available animal models. We will also discuss the future prospects of vaccine development and the use of animal models in studying virus–host interactions, testing future versions of vaccines, and addressing COVID-19-related issues such as long COVID as we move to the next phase of the pandemic.

Dr. Lok-Yin Roy Wong
Dr. Alan Sariol
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Vaccines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• coronavirus
• animal model
• vaccine-induced immunity
• immune correlates of protection
• neutralizing antibody escape
• VOCs
• breakthrough infection
• long COVID