<
https://theconversation.com/worlds-first-ai-designed-vaccine-explained-284668>
"Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed what they describe
as a fundamentally new type of vaccine using artificial intelligence (AI). The
vaccine’s key component was designed entirely by AI and has now been tested in
people for the first time.
The goal is ambitious: a single vaccine that works not just against all known
human coronavirus variants, but against related bat viruses that could jump
from animals to humans and cause future pandemics.
Traditional vaccines train our immune system to recognise one specific virus.
The problem is that viruses mutate. When they change enough, the vaccine stops
working, which is why we need a new flu shot every year and why COVID vaccines
have been updated repeatedly since 2021.
AI offers a way around this. By analysing genetic data from thousands of
related viruses, it can identify the parts that stay the same across different
strains and that are unlikely to change over time. Target those stable
features, and you have a vaccine that should work against the whole family, not
just the strain you started with.
This is exactly what the Cambridge team did. They used AI to scan viruses from
the sarbecovirus family, which includes the viruses that cause both SARS and
COVID, as well as a range of animal coronaviruses – looking for shared features
that evolution has left largely untouched. Those features became the basis of
the vaccine."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
