World’s first vaccine entirely designed by an AI heads to human trials

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By Matthew Griffin Intelligence and the Senses 22nd September 2019

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

There is a lot of hype about using AI to help design and discover new drugs, but we are starting to see results.

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Researchers often spend billions of dollars and countless hours developing new drugs, only for the vast majority to fail long before they reach human trials. And in recent years some of those developers have started exploring ways to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help them discover new drugs, with one such AI designing 30,000 new drug combinations in just 21 days, some of which showed a lot of promise. Now though, in another development, one of those AI’s has managed to develop a promising new flu vaccine — all by itself.

The team then synthesized some of SAM’s top candidates and tested them on human blood cells in a lab. One of those candidates was a flu vaccine “turbocharger” that later proved incredibly effective in animals.

Clinical trials of the new vaccine in human patients have now kicked off all across the US, and if they go as hoped, we could be entering an era of fewer flus – and more AI developed drugs.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, described as a "Walking encyclopaedia of the future" by NASA and a futurist polymath, is one of the world's most renowned futurists and strategic foresight experts. A serial entrepreneur Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, XPotential University, the world's first free futures and foresight university, and the World Futures Forum which works with the United Nations to solve the worlds greatest challenges. 13 times author of the Codex of the Future series, Matthew is an in demand international keynote, acclaimed university lecturer, and host of the hit Fanatical Futurist podcast.

A rare talent in his past Matthew helped build and run several multi-billion dollar business units for Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, and his ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77+ governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Pepsi Co, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others. He was also the only futurist invited to talk at the UN COP28 held in Dubai alongside world leaders.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.