AI-Guided Universal Bird Flu Vaccine Provides Complete Protection Against Multiple Variants

Cambridge Team’s AI Vaccine Stands Up to Bird Flu’s Many Faces

University of Cambridge researchers have announced a third success with their AI-guided technique for designing vaccines, this time creating a broad-spectrum bird flu vaccine that delivered complete protection against diverse, globally circulating variants in animal trials. This new vaccine, developed in partnership with spin-out DIOSynVax Ltd, proved far more effective than the stockpiled bird flu vaccines currently held by many governments, which only protected about 50% of animals exposed to multiple bird flu variants.

Bird flu is spreading in animal populations worldwide and is considered a significant threat to global public health. While some North American variants have caused only mild human infections, others in south-east Asia have led to severe disease and high mortality. Like the coronaviruses that caused COVID-19, bird flu is an RNA virus, meaning it can mutate rapidly, jump from animals to humans, and evade our immune systems and existing vaccines. The Cambridge team’s approach is fundamentally different. It’s designed to anticipate viral evolution, rather than reacting to it.

“Rather than providing immunity to a single variant of bird flu, our new broad-spectrum vaccine is protective against a huge range of variants,” said Professor Jonathan Heeney in the Lab of Viral Zoonotics at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, who led the work. “It’s designed to anticipate viral evolution, rather than reacting to it.”

The team’s “plug and play” method uses artificial intelligence to sift through the genetic sequences of all bird flu viruses logged by surveillance programs across the globe. From this massive dataset, their AI tool designs “super-antigens”—the key ingredients that trigger an immune response—containing the features common to an entire group of viruses. These candidates are then screened in cells and the best one is selected for testing. The result is a vaccine that offers lasting protection from thousands of virus variants in a single vaccine. Using AI vastly speeds up the process, and the team can test the vaccine candidates in the lab to ensure they are strong and safe. These new universal vaccines are designed for the long term; they shield against numerous variants at once and may also cover related viruses that have not yet appeared and jumped to people.

A Head-to-Head Test of Immunity

The study, published today in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, provides evidence of the new vaccine’s superiority. During animal testing, the DIOSynVax vaccine offered full protection to mice and ferrets against a collection of genetically different strains of the virus responsible for bird flu—all of which have resulted in human cases and are seen as possible pandemic dangers. In contrast, just half of the animals stayed alive after being exposed to these same viruses when they were given the World Health Organisation’s conventional bird flu vaccine.

The current approach to pandemic preparedness is decades old and largely reactive. Governments stockpile vaccines designed against specific virus strains that have already emerged. But by the time these vaccines are manufactured and distributed, the virus has often mutated, rendering the vaccine less effective and requiring constant updates. The Cambridge vaccine shatters this cycle.

Beyond Bird Flu: A Platform for Global Health

The team’s ambition doesn’t stop at avian flu. Their goal is to create broadly protective vaccines for both animals and humans, aiming to reduce the opportunities for pathogens to emerge, adapt, and spread. This October, the team, in partnership with the Universities of Regensburg and Southampton, secured £4.28 million from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Defra. This funding will allow the team to proceed with the ongoing development of their single vaccine targeting the viruses that cause Lassa fever, Marburg, and Ebola—some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world. Ebola, for instance, has an average fatality rate of around 50%, and there is no approved Marburg vaccine or antiviral treatment.

The team is also tackling the annual flu shot ritual. Preliminary results from their broad-spectrum influenza vaccine show that the antigen they designed in 2018 is still effective after seven years. This is a finding, as the need for frequent reformulation is a fundamental limitation of current vaccines and the primary reason why flu and COVID-19 jabs are currently needed every year by millions around the world.

The Unseen Threat and the Race for Preparedness

The virus is carried in the guts of infected birds and can be carried halfway across the world by migrating species, deposited as infectious droppings. This year, it was detected for the first time in animals in Australia and New Zealand. “It’s when bird flu adapts to live in the airways of mammals that we start to get really nervous,” Heeney warned, “not only because of the impact on animal health but because of the threat to humans. If we can make better animal vaccines, then we can better protect human health as well.”

Pigs and humans share the same receptors for the virus in their respiratory tracts. This means a bird flu virus that adapts to infect pigs could increase the virus’ ability to infect humans too. Moreover, given the pace at which people travel the globe, a highly contagious strain appearing in one location could rapidly spread globally. The subsequent phase is to evaluate this new bird flu vaccine in human clinical trials, ensuring it can be administered to people without delay when the situation demands it.

Worth a look