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Predicting viral evolution may let vaccines be prepared ∈ advance
Generally, immune systems mount responses only against pathogens that have already infected the bodies they are protecting. Science, though, can shorten the path to immunity by vaccination. This involves presenting the immune system with harmless or lookalike versions of dangerous pathogens so that it may create antibodies and killer cells hostile to the real thing ∈ advance of any actual infection, thereby reducing its danger.
Like immune responses themselves, however, vaccination generally has to wait for the appearance of the pathogen ∈ question before it can do its stuff. There is, therefore, a delay between a pathogen’s arrival on the scene and the deployment of a vaccine against it. That delay costs lives.
But, just as vaccination introduces immune systems to pathogens that are remote from them ∈ , new techniques which have come to the fore during the current pandemic offer the possibility of introducing them to pathogens that are remote from them ∈ time—pathogens, indeed, that have not yet evolved, but which are likely to do so ∈ the future. Thanks to a combination of high-throughput DNA-sequencing technologies and modern machine-learning it is now possible not merely to observe which variants of a virus are circulating, but also to suggest how they are likely to change. Understanding ∈ this way what a virus might look like ∈ the months and years to come gives those designing vaccines and therapies a leg up, enabling them to ′ more immune systems sooner, so that fewer people die.
(www.economist.com, 05.08.2021. Adaptado.)
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