World’s first vaccine developed with AI’s help

Researchers say artificial intelligence has been used to develop a “fundamentally new” type of vaccine that could protect against large swathes of viruses and prevent pandemics, the BBC writes.

The team at the University of Cambridge say it is the first time a vaccine’s key component has been designed entirely by AI and then trialled in people.

The vaccine was engineered to work on all coronaviruses which would include all Covid variants as well as viruses that currently infect animals yet have the potential to start the next pandemic.

The Cambridge researchers took known genetic codes – the instruction manuals of life – from a range of coronaviruses that had been recorded by surveillance programmes hunting for potential viral threats.

These genetic codes were analyzed by an artificial intelligence. It then designed a “super-antigen” that could train the immune system in such a way it gave protection against the whole family of viruses – even if they mutated or a new infection jumped from animals to people.