by spuz on 1/11/22, 4:00 PM
> More than 10,000 novel variant sequences are currently discovered every week and human experts simply cannot cope with complex data at this scale
This is interesting. I think the Greek alphabet naming system would lead some people to believe the virus only mutates once every few months. Of course, the reality is that every infected individual will produce hundreds of mutations within their body. I think there's a gap in the public messaging here which if addressed could help people understand what the future direction of the pandemic might be.
by axg11 on 1/11/22, 3:06 PM
Impressive if true, although I am very sceptical of the results. The real test is to put their neck on the line and predict/warn of the next significant variant. If the authors are not willing to do this, I doubt that the algorithm is useful.
As a side note, the first author on this paper is the CEO of InstaDeep. I see it as a red flag that the CEO of a 150+ person company would put themselves as first author on this paper. Perhaps I'm unfairly judging and the CEO really was the lead contributor to the study.
by solididiot on 1/11/22, 3:19 PM
Regardless of the specifics here, I'm pleased and envious of being reminded that some people have meaningful jobs that actually make a difference.
by fasteddie31003 on 1/11/22, 3:19 PM
I'm all for stopping new variants of COVID. Why in the world do we have a treatment for COVID that intentionally creates mutations in COVID
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molnupiravir ? I'm not a doctor but it seems pretty clear to me that Molnupiravir creates a great environment for new variants to arise (along with cancer, but that's another issue).
by alexwg on 1/11/22, 2:48 PM
by twofornone on 1/11/22, 4:16 PM
>More than 10,000 novel variant sequences are currently discovered every week and human experts simply cannot cope with complex data at this scale
I suspected something like this, given the frequency of viral mutation. Officials announce a dominant global strain but what proportion of positive cases are actually sequenced and evaluated for confirmation? How many undiscovered strains are actually in circulation at any given time, in geographically isolated areas? Could that explain variability in severity and/or long covid?
by abeppu on 1/11/22, 7:06 PM
This is not my area and I read the press release but not the paper -- but I cannot help noticing that they mention a sensitivity/recall number (>90%) but not a specificity or precision number.
Even if you're not trying to be cynical or skeptical about this, when there are this few true positive examples available, how can one plausibly do a good job calibrating such a system?
by dopylitty on 1/11/22, 3:53 PM
Given that we still don’t know the mechanism by which variants achieve their increased fitness I’m a little suspicious of claims of using “AI” to identify new variants.
Claims that spike affinity for ACE2 (or indeed changes to the spike protein at all) haven’t been conclusively proven to increase fitness as far as I know. It’s possible that this tool is simply overfit to the known variants and wouldn’t detect a new one.
I’d be interested to hear what real virologists think of this.
by just_steve_h on 1/11/22, 7:00 PM
I assume this is also part of a product development process: if the EWS flags a particular variant, BioNTech can begin crafting a new vaccine component and have it ready sooner, earning a competitive advantage in the (capitalist) vaccine marketplace.
by bolbols on 1/11/22, 7:47 PM
Great, finally one real example where AI can really help with this pandemic
by 71a54xd on 1/11/22, 7:36 PM
Is this literally a joke? This might as well be a doomsday machine driven by weak AI selecting new Greek glyphs to drive demand for new superfluous covid vaccines.
I'm fully vaccinated, but more data points to come up with media fear mongering is the last thing anyone in the developed world needs right now.
by wesletimk on 1/11/22, 7:42 PM
Very good News,
I hope this will save a lot of souls
by n380 on 1/11/22, 7:42 PM
amazing, who thought machine learning will help on finding variant is dangerous or not without going to lab !
by liuliu on 1/11/22, 5:13 PM
Is the idea to develop mRNA vaccines that can boost immunity against variants that haven't existed today?
by 1cvmask on 1/11/22, 3:18 PM