By Neil Mabbott
Publication Date: 2026-06-09 08:16:00
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have used artificial intelligence (AI) to develop what they believe is a fundamentally new type of vaccine. The key component of the vaccine was developed entirely by AI and has now been tested on humans for the first time.
The goal is ambitious: a single vaccine that works not only against all known human coronavirus variants, but also against related bat viruses that could jump from animals to humans and cause future pandemics.
Traditional vaccines train our immune system to recognize a specific virus. The problem is that viruses mutate. If they change enough, the vaccine stops working, which is why we need a new flu shot every year and why COVID vaccines have been updated repeatedly since 2021.
AI offers a way around this. By analyzing the genetic data of thousands of related viruses, it is possible to identify the parts that remain the same across different strains and are unlikely to change over time. If you target these stable features, you will…