{"doi":"10.18103/mra.v11i2.3598","title":"Effect of MMR Vaccination to Mitigate Severe Sequelae Associated With COVID-19: Challenges and Lessons Learned","abstract":"Mortality in COVID-19 cases was strongly associated with progressive lung inflammation and eventual sepsis. There is mounting evidence that live attenuated vaccines commonly administered during childhood, also provide beneficial non-specific immune effects, including reduced mortality and hospitalization due to unrelated infections. It has been proposed that live attenuated vaccine-associated non-specific effects are a result of inducing trained innate immunity to function more effectively against broader infections. In support of this, our laboratory has reported that immunization with a live attenuated fungal strain induces a novel form of trained innate immunity which provides protection against various inducers of sepsis in mice via myeloid-derived suppressor cells. Accordingly, we initiated a randomized control clinical trial with the live attenuated Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) vaccine in healthcare workers in the greater New Orleans area aimed at preventing/reducing severe lung inflammation/sepsis associated with COVID-19 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04475081). Included was an outcome to evaluate the myeloid-derived suppressor cell populations in blood between those administered the MMR vaccine vs placebo. The unanticipated emergency approval of several COVID-19 vaccines in the midst of the MMR clinical trials eliminated the ability to examine effects of the MMR vaccine on COVID-19-related health status. Unfortunately, we were also unable to show any impact of the MMR vaccine on peripheral blood myeloid-derived suppressor cells due to several inherent limitations (low percentages of blood leukocytes, small sample size), that also included a collaboration with a similar trial (CROWN CORONATION; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04333732) in St. Louis, MO. In contrast, monitoring the COVID-19 vaccine response in trial participants revealed that high COVID-19 antibody titers occurred more often in those who received the MMR vaccine vs placebo. While the trial was largely inconclusive, lessons learned from addressing several trial-associated challenges may aid future studies that test the non-specific beneficial immune effects of live attenuated vaccines.","journal":"Medical Research Archives","year":2023,"id":363782,"datarank":0.34993331646675446,"base_score":2.0794415416798357,"endowment":2.0794415416798357,"self_citation_contribution":0.31191623125197543,"citation_network_contribution":0.03801708521477901,"self_endowment_contribution":0.31191623125197543,"citer_contribution":0.03801708521477901,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":7,"citers_with_citation_signal":3,"citers_with_endowment":3,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9553,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT04475081","NCT04333732"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":240893,"name":"Junko Yano","orcid":"0000-0001-6308-9071","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1118595,"name":"Michael Hagensee","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":864296,"name":"Hui Lin","orcid":"0000-0003-2670-050X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1118596,"name":"Mary Meyaski","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1118597,"name":"Erin Meyaski","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":672755,"name":"Jennifer Cameron","orcid":"0000-0002-5785-2410","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":707323,"name":"Judd E. Shellito","orcid":"0000-0001-7729-2708","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1118598,"name":"Amber Trauth","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":524985,"name":"Paul L. Fidel","orcid":"0000-0001-8066-5763","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":524984,"name":"Mairi C. Noverr","orcid":"0000-0002-8812-1450","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":29,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:14:32.510714Z","pmid":"37153751","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}