UF Researchers Use AI To Predict New Coronavirus Variants

A world awash in waves of novel coronavirus variants is left to react to each new emergence. Will this one be as deadly as delta? As transmissible as omicron?

Imagine if we could get ahead of the curve and predict the next one. That’s the goal of a new $3.7 million research grant led by University of Florida professors Marco Salemi, Ph.D., and Mattia Prosperi, Ph.D,, M.Eng., and funded by the National Institutes of Health.

“The coronavirus is a moving target and we have always been one step behind,” said Salemi, a professor of experimental pathology in the UF College of Medicine’s department of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine and the Stephany W. Holloway University Chair in AIDS Research. “Every time the epidemic seems to be coming under control, another variant emerges that is more virulent — not necessarily causing more severe disease, but certainly more transmissible — and it spreads again.”

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