Chapter 35 Who says simulated evolution is not evolution?
Chen Yuanguang chose to cooperate with Levitt, who shared with him some of the most cutting-edge scientific research trends, and he tried to find specific solutions.
"Yuan Guang, the virus mutates too fast.
Do you think we can induce its directed evolution through vaccines and slowly reduce its toxicity to a level even worse than the flu? Low level? "
After becoming familiar with Chen Yuanguang, Levitt liked to call him by his Chinese name.
Through Chen Yuanguang's paper on protein induced evolution, he then thought that induced evolution could be used to actively choose the direction of evolution.
Chen Yuanguang replied on the other end of the phone: "Professor, what I thought before was to study a broad-spectrum vaccine to combat its continued mutation.
Now, looking at induced directed evolution combined with a broad-spectrum vaccine , the virus should be eliminated within four to five vaccinations.”
Once you have an idea, start working.
“Yuan Guang, this is a great idea, we should look for the most common mutation points in existing strains.
Then design the antigen to cover the points with the highest mutation frequency, so as to minimize the immune evasion ability of current and future mutated viruses.
Yuan Guang, your idea is right. "
"Yuan Guang, cuts off the binding ability between the S protein and the ACE receptor, which can reduce the infectivity of the virus. Considering that common mutations have appeared in virus lineages, such as D614G observed at Harvard, del69-70 observed in China, etc., we now need to look for common mutations among them. ”
“The current data is not enough, we need more data for verification. "
"Yuan Guang, the current mutation data is not enough, so we can use computer simulation to calculate the mutation situation. This idea is no problem.
But there is a question, how do you ensure that the high-frequency common mutations you calculate are the same as the mutations in the real world.
This is too difficult. Once the designed algorithm is wrong, the antigen design will not have the expected broad-spectrum effect. "
"Yuan Guang, you are truly a genius. According to the latest mutant strains detected in New York, Tokyo, Johannesburg and other cities, they are completely consistent with the common mutations simulated by the algorithm we designed. We have already walked this path! "
"Yuan Guang, we are completely ready to submit the manuscript. If our ideas are used in the design of subsequent broad-spectrum vaccines, considering its value, our results will be enough to win the Nobel Prize next year! "
"Yuan Guang, I regret that I didn't win you over to study for my doctorate. ”
Levitt's attitude changed from being cooperative at the beginning to being completely convinced later. He even felt like he was hugging his thigh.
As for Ba Wendi, after learning about Chen Yuanguang's work, he directly said: "Yuanguang, after the results of this article are completed, I think you can get a doctorate. MIT and I have nothing more to do." I can teach you more.
Your attainments in the field of computational chemistry have far surpassed mine, and you are not that interested in doing experiments. I think it is better for your growth to enter the next stage faster. It’s beneficial.”
After MIT organized experts to review the paper, they gave it an extremely high evaluation. After publishing Science, they specially invited front-line scientific researchers from around the world to hold a remote video conference. "Conditions are limited, so we can only introduce to you online the outstanding contributions made by Mr. Light Chen, a Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry of our school, in the fight against the virus."
Professor Ranke is a biology professor at a 985 university in China. He has been engaged in related research since the beginning of the virus epidemic. He is still paying close attention to some seminars and lectures at top foreign universities.
Some of their groups engaged in related university research have also done some information sharing. Online meetings with 2,000 people on the scale of MIT are still relatively rare.
It was also because everyone in the group said that MIT paid special attention to this conference. A big boss said that this was an unprecedented breakthrough result, so he signed up.
Rank found out in the group that there was no place for anyone who was five minutes behind him.
With the endorsement of MIT and Levitt, this seminar was very popular.
Rank knew who Levitt was, but the other light Chen was Chinese. The problem was that he had never heard of this person before.
The paper has only been accepted by Science and has not been published yet. Moreover, the top journals published by Chen Yuanguang before were more concentrated in the fields of computational chemistry and computational biology. For example, those engaged in vaccine research are all virology experts. Everyone It’s normal not to understand.
"Why does this person look familiar, and he looks a bit young." After entering the zoom video conference room, Rank muttered in his heart.
“The design of a broad-spectrum vaccine is not a simple addition of mutation sites. It requires rigorous bioinformatics calculations and joint analysis of experimental evidence.
More mutation sites are not better. , the most important thing is that the data needs to be accurate, and we need to look for its commonalities. The more prominent the commonalities are, the more significant the sequential immunity effect will be.
The problems we are facing this time are very big challenges. Global health is under attack. It is unlikely that we will wait until data on virus mutation has accumulated to a certain extent before designing a broad-spectrum vaccine.
So there are not enough strains and mutation points, so we cannot look for commonalities, but we have to make a broad-spectrum vaccine, because even if the traditional vaccine is mRNA, its coverage time is limited. Yes, judging from the current mutation of the virus, this coverage period will be very, very short.
Facing this dilemma, my solution is to simulate evolution, simulate virus evolution, and use the simulated virus mutation points and the real virus mutation points to analyze together to find commonalities. To put it simply."
Talking to the video, there is no pressure at all.
If the mute had not been turned on, his voice would have been drowned out by the exclamations of two thousand people.< br>
As Ranke listened, he was thinking, this is too outrageous. To design a vaccine based on simulated viruses, how can you ensure that the mutation points you simulated will really evolve according to the mutation points you simulated?
This is not science, this is metaphysics. Even if it is disguised as data analysis and data modeling, it is still metaphysics.
Until he saw the final data comparison, when the mutated virus they simulated in April actually appeared in the global monitoring report in July, Rank's jaw dropped to the table.
(End of this chapter)