BioNTech, InstaDeep Develop, Successfully Test Early Warning System to Detect Potential High-Risk SARS-CoV-2 Variants

 

• Early Warning System combines Spike protein structural modeling with artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and monitor high-risk SARS-CoV-2 variants, identifying >90% of WHO-designated variants on average two months prior to officially receiving the designation
• Study introduces a new method of combining publicly available SARS-CoV-2 sequence information with predictive analytics to effectively detect and monitor potential high-risk variants which could help increase preparedness against future variants of concern
• Early Warning System is fully scalable as new variant data become available
• Study is available on the pre-print server BioRxiv and has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal

BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX, “BioNTech”) and InstaDeep Ltd (“InstaDeep”) today announced the development of a new computational method that analyses worldwide available sequencing data and predicts high-risk variants of SARS-CoV-2. The Early Warning System (EWS) developed in collaboration by BioNTech and InstaDeep is based on artificial intelligence (AI) calculated immune escape and fitness metrics.

The new method combines structural modeling of the viral Spike protein and AI algorithms to quickly flag potential high-risk variants entered into SARS-CoV-2 sequence data repositories within less than a day based on metrics scoring their fitness (e.g. ACE2 and variant Spike protein interaction) as well as their immune escape properties. The companies validated these predictions using experimental data generated in-house and publicly available data.

During the trial period, the system has identified >90% of the World Health Organization (WHO)-designated variants (Variants of Concern, VOC; Variants of Interest, VOI; Variants Under Monitoring,VUM) on average two months in advance. WHO-designated variants Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Theta, Eta and Omicron were detected by the EWS in the same week its sequence was first uploaded. The Omicron variant was ranked as a high-risk variant the same day its sequence became available. The IHU variant observed in France has also been evaluated by the EWS, which highlighted immune escape properties that are relatively similar to Omicron but with significantly lower fitness, making it less of a concern given current data.

The results from the study underline that the EWS is capable of evaluating new variants in minutes and risk monitoring variant lineages nearly in real-time. It is also fully scalable as new variant data becomes available.

https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-details/biontech-and-instadeep-developed-and-successfully-tested-early/