this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
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AI-designed universal vaccine clears first human trial, targets future coronavirus threats with needle-free delivery. (medicalxpress.com)
submitted 16 hours ago by Lugh@futurology.today to c/futurology@futurology.today
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[–] tristynalxander@mander.xyz 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

AI-designed makes it sound like an LLM came up with an idea. If you follow the links you'll get to the paper where you can see the list of authors who are doing protein design.

I suppose protein design does use generative AI algorithms, but it's not thinking or coming up with anything. It's mostly just getting the atom positions more correct. In fact this one was super heavily restricted and still filtered a ton of garbage out. Frankly, it's not even impressive as protein design goes as it's barely a new protein. Maybe the predicting future variants is sorta impressive, but we've been doing that for years now.

Honestly, I wonder how the first author feels about this. I can't speak for them, but as someone who does protein design, if some journalist attributed my work to AI, I'd have a conniption fit.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 hours ago

Safe with no side effects does not mean that it works. A glass of water is safe with no side effects.

[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Will anti vaxxers find AI formulated vaccines more or less abhorrent?

[–] Bristlecone@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Great question. Most of them probably more so I'd imagine still

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 32 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Universal coronavirus vaccine, a vaccine against everything would induce all sorts of autoimmune disorders.

[–] Natanael@slrpnk.net 3 points 15 hours ago

There's another universal kind-of-vaccine in development, which doesn't tell your body what to recognize but instead tells your body how to react (primes the immune system to respond faster to respiratory infections with localized antibodies, etc)

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 15 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, right. The vaccine. The vaccine for COVID. The vaccine chosen specifically to kill COVID. COVID’s vaccine. That vaccine?

[–] WolvenSpectre@lemmy.ca 4 points 12 hours ago

No, because Vaccines don't kill Covid. Vaccines teach your immune system to respond better and on the whole have better outcomes. If vaccines killed Covid, then they would give a shot to everyone with Long Covid and cure them.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

I'm all for machine learning used this way. As long as the trials are as stringent as with any other method.

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 14 points 15 hours ago

Note that AI has been a cornerstone in high dimensional optimization for a while.

[–] bl4ckp1xx13@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Useful case of AI. 👏

[–] Despair@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It's a jet injector.

Numerous studies have found cross-infection of diseases from jet injections. An experiment using mice, published in 1985, showed that jet injectors would frequently transmit the viral infection lactate dehydrogenase elevating virus (LDV) from one mouse to another.[16] Another study used the device on a calf, then tested the fluid remaining in the injector for blood. Every injector they tested had detectable blood in a quantity sufficient to pass on a virus such as hepatitis B.[15]

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 1 points 6 hours ago

I'm curious about this too. Surely they're using some modern advancements in the tech that have addressed that issue, SURELY.

[–] whats_a_lemmy@midwest.social 12 points 12 hours ago

The original press release stated this was done using machine learning, which has been a mainstay in biomedical science for a while. It's what "AI" used to refer to before the current generation of bullshit generators.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

it’s the stringent verification of results that makes it useful

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

That's true for all research in medicine. The suggestion to not check for errors is mental and would only be suggested by non technical people.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

unfortunately, this how most companies are run

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I am sorry, but did you read that I was talking about medicine first and foremost?

Also using evidence based approaches can be beneficial for longevity of any company and if you truly believe otherwise, then that's your perogative.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

That's true for all research in medicine.

Yes, that’s why I pointed out why it works in this field.

The suggestion to not check for errors is mental and would only be suggested by non technical people.

The way people run companies in others fields is mental, and they want to use AI without verification. They shouldn’t, but they do (hence the “unfortunately”). And even when they say they’re evidence based, it’s usually cherry picked to justify what they were going to do anyway.

[–] evenglow@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago

"We've converted vaccine development from being reactive to being future proof. Our vaccines will continue to provide protection against viruses even as they mutate into new strains," said Professor Jonathan Heeney from the Lab of Viral Zoonotics, University of Cambridge's Department of Veterinary Medicine, the scientific lead of the research.

"We've overcome the problem of traditional vaccines, which have limited protection. It means we can escape the constant cycle of chasing the virus variants circulating in humans and updating the vaccines to try to catch up, like a dog chasing its tail."