Most of the American have got their first dose of Covid Shield vaccine as of now. We must thank to Artificial Intelligence, which helped to make it possible.
It typically takes many years, or even a decade, to develop a vaccine; until now, the speed record was held by the mumps vaccine, which went from a collected sample to a marketed product in about four years. The past two decades were marked with the outbreaks of many viral diseases such as Ebola, Zika, Nipah, H7N9 Bird flu, H1N1, SARS and MERS. An outbreak of a novel Coronavirus emerged and we have witnessed the speed development of Coronavirus vaccine. Thanks to AI models that helped researchers analyze vast amounts of data about it.
This epidemic has started from Wuhan city in the Hubei province of China in December 2019. But by March 2020, vaccine candidates to fight covid-19 were already undergoing human tests, just in three months. There are tens of thousands of subcomponents to the outer proteins of a virus. Machine learning models can sort through this blizzard of data and predict which subcomponents are the most immunogenic—i.e., capable of producing an immune response—and thereby guide researchers in designing targeted vaccines. The use of AI in vaccine development may revolutionize the way all vaccines are created in the future.
Those are astonishing numbers, considering that less than a year ago no one had heard of the novel coronavirus, now known as SARS-CoV-2, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19. A research team from the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering developed a new model that can counter emergent variants of the novel Coronavirus.
This artificial intelligence (AI) model can also help in speeding the process of vaccine development by analyzing its efficacy.
Research labs across the globe are had suggested on treatment and appropriate drugs/vaccines for Corona which went through rigorous testing to determine feasibility, safety and reach. Through AI, surprise findings like this virus invades the brain tissues. Maybe this the reason why many patients express the loss of their sense to taste and smell. Another interesting prediction that was made by collating the patient data through AI was that COVID-19 holds the potential to damage the reproductive system of both men and women.
At stake are not only human lives but also a piece of a global vaccine market that was estimated at US $35 billion even before COVID-19. Governments, philanthropies, and pharmaceutical companies have been spending accordingly. In July, the U.S. government agreed to pay pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer and German biotech firm BioNTech nearly $2 billion for 100 million doses of a vaccine, if and when it becomes available. Other major vaccine initiatives worldwide also have funding in the 10 figures.