Precautionary measures and precise attack AI to help develop a "universal vaccine" for coronavirus

Precise attack in advance

AI helps develop coronavirus 'universal vaccine'

【Operation "epidemic" in international war】

　　Our reporter Liu Xia

　　As the new coronavirus continues to mutate, people have begun to worry about whether the new crown vaccine used before is still effective.

Is there a "universal vaccine" that can deal with various new coronaviruses?

In order to prevent the next global pandemic, many countries are promoting relevant research, and scientists have even used the "big killer" - artificial intelligence.

　　"Universal Vaccine": Prevention

　　At the end of January this year, Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force and the president's chief medical adviser, introduced the United States' efforts to develop a "universal vaccine" for the coronavirus in Congress.

Fauci said the vaccine is designed to fight the new coronavirus and other similar viruses that may emerge in the next few years.

　　Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee: "It is increasingly important to develop a universal vaccine for coronavirus that will be effective against all variants of the new coronavirus, and ultimately against all coronaviruses."

　　In the long run, Fauci said, the development of a "universal vaccine" for the coronavirus could help prevent the world's next pandemic -- one that cannot be eradicated and may recur regularly.

In addition, humans may also be infected with unknown coronaviruses from animals.

　　Japan's "Asahi Shimbun" website pointed out in a report on the 10th that even if the effect of this "universal vaccine" is not as good as that of vaccines against specific viruses, it still has a certain protective effect against other coronaviruses.

　　For example, in December last year, the US Department of Defense’s Walter Reed Army Research Institute announced a vaccine called “spike ferritin nanoparticles” that “not only elicits a strong immune response, but may also be of interest to people. variants of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome virus, provide broad protection."

　　According to reports, the vaccine completed the first phase of human trials earlier this year, and is currently applying for the second and third phases of trials.

　　"This protein is very stable and looks like a virus, and it can exert its immune effect efficiently for a long time," said Eiji Morita, associate professor of virology at Hirosaki University in Japan.

　　AI assistance: Do more with less

　　In order to develop such a vaccine better and faster, artificial intelligence tools are "in danger".

　　According to Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Japan's NEC Corporation is using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to develop next-generation vaccines.

　　The currently used messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine against the new coronavirus introduces the mRNA encoding the antigenic protein into the human body to form the corresponding antigenic protein, thereby inducing the body to produce a specific immune response and achieving the effect of preventing immunity.

However, a large number of mutations have occurred in the spike protein of the Omicron strain, which has reduced the protective effect of the vaccine.

So NEC's strategy is to use all viral proteins other than the spike protein as candidate antigens, excluding those parts that are easy to mutate.

To do this, the researchers identified candidate antigens by having the AI ​​learn from experimental data on immune responses.

　　Coincidentally, Baseimmune, a biotech start-up based in Oxford, UK, has also performed well in developing a universal vaccine for coronavirus with the help of AI.

　　The company's vaccine works by training the immune system to recognize and respond to infections by specific pathogens, such as viruses, parasites or bacteria, according to the website of the British journal Science Focus.

At the heart of every vaccine is an antigen (a small, safe molecule based on part of a pathogen) that triggers a protective immune response.

Most vaccine antigens are based on a single pathogen component, such as the spike protein of the coronavirus, or the coat protein of the malaria parasite, and this limits the effectiveness and ability of vaccines to respond to new variants.

　　To solve this problem, Baseimmune's vaccine design algorithms combine genomics, epidemiology, immunology, and more to create entirely new synthetic antigens that contain all of the pathogens "most likely to elicit a strong protective immune response". component.

　　Baseimmune says these "pick and mix" antigens will give the immune system everything it needs to know about how to recognize and respond to a particular pathogen, now and in the future, mutated or not.

The designed antigens can be injected into any vaccine technology platform, including mRNA, DNA and viral vectors, creating a universal vaccine for all current and possible variants.

　　The company has partnered with DNA vaccine pioneer Touchlight to develop a universal vaccine for the coronavirus, designed to combat the emergence of new mutations and prevent future pandemics.

The company is understood to have secured £3.5 million in its latest investment round, which they plan to use to help develop universal vaccines for several major diseases, including coronavirus and malaria.

　　In addition, mRNA itself has problems such as poor stability and easy decomposition, so it is easy to fail during storage, transportation and in vivo expression.

Therefore, how to stabilize mRNA and improve R&D efficiency has become an urgent problem for global scientific research institutions, epidemic prevention institutions and biomedical companies.

　　China's Baidu has contributed to this problem.

According to media reports, in 2020, Baidu Research will launch LinearDesign, the world's first mRNA vaccine gene sequence design algorithm, which is an efficient algorithm specially designed to optimize mRNA sequence design.

For the new crown mRNA vaccine sequence, LinearDesign can greatly improve the stability and protein expression level of vaccine design within 16 minutes, effectively solving the most important stability problem in mRNA vaccine development.

　　The Asahi Shimbun pointed out in its report that it is still unknown whether the much-anticipated universal vaccine for coronavirus will soon be available and applied to the human body.

Still, even if it doesn’t get born before the next variant of the new coronavirus emerges, it could be a strong candidate for preventing the next pandemic caused by other coronaviruses.