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A University of Cambridge team has had a third success with its AI-guided technique for designing vaccines against highly infectious viruses that threaten animal and human health. Its new broad-spectrum bird flu vaccine gave complete protection against globally circulating, diverse variants of the disease in animal trials.

The study found the vaccine is superior to bird flu vaccines currently stockpiled by many governments for use in the event of a human outbreak. In the study, those vaccines protected only around 50% of animals exposed to multiple bird flu variants, compared with complete protection achieved by the team's new vaccine.

Developed by the University of Cambridge and spinoff DIOSynVax Ltd., this is the latest in a series of new vaccines made in an entirely new way. Their active ingredient is designed to give lasting protection from thousands of virus variants in a single vaccine.

The new study proves that the team's 'plug-and-play' approach can be used to create safe, highly effective vaccines for a range of infectious diseases threatening animal and human health globally.

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

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