HMM: ‘Universal’ coronavirus vaccine may protect against variants, common cold. “The vaccine targets a part of the COVID-19 virus’ spike protein that appears to be highly resistant to mutation and is common across nearly all coronaviruses, said senior researcher Dr. Steven Zeichner. He is a professor of pediatric infectious disease with the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. In animal studies, the COVID-19 vaccine protected pigs against two separate diseases caused by two types of coronavirus, COVID-19 and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, or PEDV, according to results published online recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”