Researchers at The University of Queensland have developed a mathematical model that can predict the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, potentially speeding-up the development of new vaccines.
The Queensland Brain Institute’s Dr Pranesh Padmanabhan, working with researchers from the Indian Institute of Science produced a model that predicts the effectiveness of the antibody response in patients receiving one of eight major vaccines.
Dr Padmanabhan said the research established a framework for predicting the efficacy of new vaccines against future strains of the SARS CoV-2 virus.
“The ability to predict vaccine efficacies could expedite vaccine development by helping shortlist promising candidates and minimise reliance on expensive and time-consuming clinical trials,” Dr Padmanabhan said.
Since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, researchers and scientists have been scrambling to develop vaccines candidates to protect against the SARS-CoV-2 virus and keep ahead of its mutations.
Dr Padmanabhan and his colleague analysed 80 individual antibodies from 20 studies to construct a mathematical model of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
“The model we developed reliably predicted the diversity of the antibody response within and across vaccinated individuals,” he said.
