Using AI to fight Coronavirus

As scientists make strides in finding answers about COVID-19, artificial intelligence has aided one Michigan State University researcher and his team in finding answers about the new omicron variant. The MSU researchers report omicron and other variants are evolving increased infectivity and antibody resistance according to an artificial intelligence model. Therefore, new vaccines and antibody therapies are needed, the researchers say. Understanding how SARS-CoV-2 evolves is essential to predicting vaccine breakthrough and designing mutation-proof vaccines and monoclonal antibody treatments. In a recent study in American Chemical Society Infectious Diseases, Guowei Wei, professor in MSU's Departments of Mathematics as well as Electrical and Computer Engineering, and colleagues, analyzed almost 1.5 million SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences taken from people with COVID-19.