🦾 AI has designed an entirely new kind of vaccine for the first time

• Researchers have, for the first time, used an artificial intelligence to design the key component of a vaccine.
• Ordinary vaccines are designed against a current strain of a virus and quickly become out of date when the virus mutates. The new method instead makes it possible to design a vaccine that protects against an entire virus family at once.
• This means the vaccine can provide protection even against future mutations, and thereby against viruses that do not yet exist but could cause the next pandemic.

A vaccine against an entire virus family

Ordinary vaccines are designed using a current strain of a virus. The Cambridge researchers took a different route. They took known genetic codes from a range of coronaviruses that had been recorded by surveillance programmes searching for potential viral threats.

These codes were analysed by an artificial intelligence. It then designed a so-called super-antigen. An antigen is the part of a vaccine that the immune system learns to attack. This super-antigen is intended to train the immune system so that it provides protection against an entire family of viruses at once, even if the viruses mutate or a new infection jumps from animals to people.

That is where the big difference lies. Instead of protecting against a single virus strain, the method can provide far broader protection. As a result, a vaccine can work even against future mutations of a virus, that is, variants that do not yet exist.

Professor Jonathan Heeney at the University of Cambridge explains that this is the first time an antigen designed by AI has been trialled in people. He says the aim is to make vaccines that protect us, not just from today's viruses, but from what could cause the next outbreak or disease. He describes it as a shift in how society prepares for pandemics.

Why it is needed

Vaccines teach the body to recognise an infection so that the chances of fighting it off increase. The problem is that some viruses are adept at changing their appearance by mutating. The vaccine then quickly becomes out of date. That is why vaccines against Covid and seasonal flu need to be updated regularly. According to Heeney, research is always behind, and the aim of the new method is instead to get ahead of the curve and protect against new outbreaks and pandemics.

Professor Saul Faust at the University of Southampton, who carried out part of the trials, says the AI design has potential. He points out that the technology is considerably better at developing vaccines against potential pandemics precisely when viruses are changing.

More vaccines on the way

The Cambridge team is already conducting animal research on a universal seasonal flu vaccine that would not need to be adapted every year, as well as a vaccine against the bird flu virus H5N1, in case the virus that is currently affecting bird populations were to become a human pandemic. They are also working on a vaccine against viral haemorrhagic fevers, which includes Ebola. The ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is caused by a species for which no vaccine has yet been developed.

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