VOA Special English - AI Tool Aims to Predict Virus Variants before They Appear

　　VOA Special English - AI Tool Aims to Predict Virus Variants before They Appear

　　美国之音特别英语-人工智能工具旨在预测病毒变种出现之前

【原文听力】

　　By Bryan Lynn

　　25 October 2023

　　Scientists have created an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that aims to predict different virus versions, called variants, before they appear.

　　Creators of the tool say it works by estimating the likelihood that a variant will permit it to escape the body's own immunity defenses.

　　The tool is called EVEscape. It works by processing collected data on the development, or evolution, of a virus over time. The system also considers detailed biological and structural information related to the virus.

　　This image provided by The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases shows the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (NIAID-RML via AP)

　　The method is a form of "generative AI," a term describing technology tools designed to operate at human levels. EVEscape was developed by researchers from Britain's University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. The team's findings recently appeared in a study in the publication Nature.

　　Many viruses repeatedly mutate in an effort to stay alive and strong. This requires viruses to infect living organisms. Once inside the body, viruses continue to reproduce and spread.

　　The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains that repeated mutating creates new variants. Some of these mutations permit the virus "to spread more easily or make it resistant to treatments or vaccines," the CDC said.

　　The researchers built on previous work involving a tool they created called EVE. This tool was designed to study gene mutations that can cause human disease. In a past study, the team said it successfully used EVE to identify mutations linked to conditions like cancer and heart disease.

　　During the COVID-19 pandemic, the scientists said they recognized a good chance to "rebuild" EVE into a new tool "for the purpose of predicting viral variants."

　　To do this, the team explained it "turned the clock back to January 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic started." The researchers asked the EVEscape tool to predict what mutations would develop from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

　　The researchers reported the tool correctly predicted which SARS-CoV-2 mutations would appear and which would become most common, or dominant.

　　The team also said the tool predicted which antibody-based treatments "would lose their efficacy as the pandemic progressed and the virus developed mutations to escape these treatments."

　　The study noted EVEscape can make predictions more quickly and effectively than lab-based methods. This is because the tool does not need "to wait for relevant antibodies to arise in the population and become available for testing."

　　The team said the system was able to examine tens of thousands of new virus variants appearing each week and identified the ones most likely to become problematic.

　　Sarah Gurev is a student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technoology (MIT). She was a leader of the research. Gurev said that by quickly identifying the threat level of new variants, "we can help inform earlier public health decisions."

　　The team said it continuously uses the system to examine real-time data about the development of new variants of SARS-CoV-2. It then shares this information with the public and international agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO).

　　The researchers said their experiments also showed the EVEscape tool could successfully predict mutating behaviors for other common viruses, including HIV and the flu.

　　Debora Marks is a professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School's Blavatnik Institute. She was a lead writer of the study. She said the researchers would continue to improve the tool's ability to predict new variants for a number of viruses. "Because if we can, that's going to be extremely important for designing vaccines and therapies."

　　I'm Bryan Lynn.

　　Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from Oxford University, Harvard Medical School and Nature.

　　英译中：

　　布莱恩·林恩

　　2023年10月25日

　　科学家创造了一种人工智能(AI)工具，旨在预测不同的病毒版本，即变种，然后再出现。

　　该工具的创造者表示，它通过估计一个变体允许它脱离身体自身的可能性来工作免疫防御。

　　这个工具叫做EVEscape。它的工作原理是处理收集到的病毒随时间发展或进化的数据。该系统还考虑与病毒相关的详细生物和结构信息。

　　这张由国家过敏和传染病研究所提供的图片显示了新型冠状病毒病毒。(美联社RML报道)

　　这种方法是“生成性人工智能”的一种形式，这是一个描述旨在人类水平上操作的技术工具的术语。EVEscape是由英国牛津大学和马萨诸塞州波士顿哈佛医学院的研究人员开发的。该小组的发现最近发表了一项研究中在出版物中自然.

　　许多病毒反复出现使突变为了生存和强壮。这需要病毒感染活的有机体。一旦进入体内，病毒就会继续繁殖和传播。

　　美国疾病控制和预防中心说明这种反复的变异创造了新的变种。CDC说，其中一些突变使病毒“更容易传播，或使其对治疗或疫苗产生耐药性”。

　　研究人员在之前的工作基础上，开发了一个叫做EVE的工具。这个工具被设计用来研究可能导致人类疾病的基因突变。在过去的研究中，该团队表示，他们成功地利用EVE识别了与癌症和心脏病等疾病相关的突变。

　　在新冠肺炎疫情期间，科学家们表示，他们认识到了一个将EVE“重建”成一个新工具的好机会，“目的是预测病毒变异”

　　为此，团队解释它“将时钟拨回到2020年1月，就在新冠肺炎疫情开始之前。”研究人员要求EVEscape工具预测导致新冠肺炎的新型冠状病毒病毒会发生什么样的变异。

　　研究人员报告说，该工具正确预测了哪些新型冠状病毒突变将出现，哪些将变得最常见或占主导地位。

　　该小组还说该工具预测了哪些基于抗体的治疗“将随着疫情的发展和病毒产生突变以逃避这些治疗而失去效力”

　　该研究指出EVEscape可以比基于实验室的方法更快更有效地做出预测。这是因为该工具不需要“等待”相关的抗体在人群中产生并可用于检测。"

　　该团队表示，该系统能够检查每周出现的数万种新病毒变种，并识别出最有可能成为问题的变种。

　　Sarah Gurev是麻省理工学院电子工程和计算机科学项目的学生。她是这项研究的领导者。Gurev说，通过快速识别新变种的威胁水平，“我们可以帮助做出更早的公共卫生决策。”

　　该团队表示，他们不断使用该系统来检查关于新型冠状病毒新变种发展的实时数据。然后，它与公众和世界卫生组织(世卫组织)等国际机构分享这些信息。

　　研究人员表示，他们的实验还表明，EVEscape工具可以成功预测其他常见病毒的变异行为，包括艾滋病毒和流感。

　　黛博拉·马克斯是哈佛医学院布拉瓦特尼克研究所的系统生物学教授。她是这项研究的主要作者。她说，研究人员将继续改进该工具预测多种病毒新变种的能力。“因为如果我们能做到的话，这对疫苗的设计将是极其重要的疗法."

　　我是布莱恩·林恩。

　　布莱恩·林恩为美国之音英语学习撰写了这个故事，基于来自牛津大学、哈佛医学院和《自然》杂志的报道。

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　　这个故事中的词语

　　immunity–n。抵抗传染病的身体力量

　　mutate–v。使基因发生变化并在植物或动物身上创造出不寻常的特征

　　efficacy –n。产生预期结果的能力

　　relevant–adj。与正在发生的事情或者正在谈论的事情相关或者有用

　　therapy–n。一种疾病的治疗方法