<\/p>
According to the World Health Organization, immunisation currently prevents four to five million deaths every year. However, an additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided through the use of more effective vaccines, they say.<\/p>\n
Vaccines work by training the immune system to respond to infection by a specific pathogen, such as a virus, parasite or bacteria. At the heart of every vaccine is an antigen \u2013 a small, safe molecule based on part of the pathogen, which triggers the protective immune response.<\/p>\n
However, most vaccine antigens are based on a single pathogen component, such as the spike protein of the COVID SARS-CoV-2 virus, which limits their effectiveness and ability to cope with new variants.<\/p>\n
Now, Oxford-based biotech start-up Baseimmune<\/a> has developed an algorithm-based system capable of creating antigens containing all the parts of the pathogen. The technology could help researchers to develop the next generation of universal vaccines that protect against future variants that could evolve in several major diseases.<\/p>\n Read more about viruses:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe major problem with current vaccines is that they aren\u2019t designed to account for the evolutionary arms race that occurs between pathogens and the human immune system, and can\u2019t protect against future variants or new mutations,\u201d said co-founder and software engineer Phillip Kemlo.<\/p>\n \u201cOur prediction algorithm addresses all of these challenges, accelerating the creation of vaccines that are as good as they possibly can be and will stand up to whatever variants may come in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Baseimmune\u2019s vaccine design algorithm draws on\u00a0genomic, epidemiological, immunological, clinical and evolutionary data to create blueprints for antigens capable of responding to a particular pathogen in its current form as well as likely variants that may arise in the future.<\/p>\n Back in January 2020, the Baseimmune team fed the small amount of existing data about SARS-CoV-2 into their algorithm, which correctly predicted major variants such as Alpha and Delta that would not emerge for another year.<\/p>\n The team were recently awarded \u00a33.5m in funding in an investment round led by Hoxton Ventures and including early investors Creator Fund. They plan to use the money to help to create future-proof universal vaccines for several major diseases including COVID and malaria.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up in Brazil and saw first-hand the impact of infectious disease as my aunt lived her whole life with the devastating effects of polio, a vaccine-preventable disease,\u201d said co-founder Ariane Gomes. \u201cThe COVID pandemic has reminded us that infectious diseases aren\u2019t going anywhere, so we urgently need to develop the next generation of vaccines to help protect us all.\u201d<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Jason Goodyer Published: Wednesday, 03 November 2021 at 12:00 am According to the World Health Organization, immunisation currently prevents four to five million deaths every year. However, an additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided through the use of more effective vaccines, they say. Vaccines work by training the immune system to respond to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":206,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/ai-tool-may-help-develop-universal-vaccines-capable-of-combatting-virus-variants-before-they-emerge.jpg",1200,621,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/ai-tool-may-help-develop-universal-vaccines-capable-of-combatting-virus-variants-before-they-emerge-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/ai-tool-may-help-develop-universal-vaccines-capable-of-combatting-virus-variants-before-they-emerge-300x155.jpg",300,155,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/ai-tool-may-help-develop-universal-vaccines-capable-of-combatting-virus-variants-before-they-emerge-768x397.jpg",768,397,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/ai-tool-may-help-develop-universal-vaccines-capable-of-combatting-virus-variants-before-they-emerge-1024x530.jpg",800,414,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/ai-tool-may-help-develop-universal-vaccines-capable-of-combatting-virus-variants-before-they-emerge.jpg",1200,621,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/ai-tool-may-help-develop-universal-vaccines-capable-of-combatting-virus-variants-before-they-emerge.jpg",1200,621,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Jason Goodyer Published: Wednesday, 03 November 2021 at 12:00 am According to the World Health Organization, immunisation currently prevents four to five million deaths every year. However, an additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided through the use of more effective vaccines, they say. Vaccines work by training the immune system to respond to…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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