AI-designed universal vaccine clears first human trial, targets future coronavirus threats with needle-free delivery

Illustration of a colorful virus particle breaking apart, representing an AI-designed universal vaccine targeting rapidly mutating virus variants.
(Image Credit: Corona Borealis Studio/Shutterstock)

The first human clinical trial of a universal Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine, developed by the University of Cambridge and spin-out DIOSynVax (DVX) Ltd, has shown that the vaccine is safe and has no significant side effects.

The trial, involving 39 healthy volunteers, tested a vaccine designed to provide protection against multiple Sarbeco coronaviruses—the large group of viruses that occur in nature including SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID pandemic.

The vaccine triggered immune responses in the volunteers not only to SARS-CoV-2 and SARS, but to related bat viruses that could potentially jump from animals to humans and cause future pandemics.

This trial proves the safety of an entirely new way of designing vaccines...

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Driverless cars are on the rise and now we may know why they crash

Driverless car
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

For the first time, new algorithms may be able to automatically explain why some self-driving cars crash—a question crucial to answer as more autonomous vehicles take to the roads. This new approach, developed by researchers at King’s College London, reviews past events to explain why specific instances of failure happened, in the hope that this can be used to make improvements in the future.

The research was presented at the 2026 IEEE International Conference of Robotics and Automation.

Self-driving vehicles are increasingly being rolled out across the globe, in cities like London and San Francisco, but collisions and serious breaches of road safety have put pressure on manufacturers to explain why they make the mistakes they do...

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Lunar orbiter concept could reveal five key elements across moon in two years

X-ray telescopes on a satellite can map the Moon's surface chemistry in a few years
X-ray Fluorescence Imaging of the Moon. The team’s new compact and lightweight imaging unit can be installed on a long-term satellite mission. Their simulations show that a comprehensive map of the entire surface might be produced in a few years. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used simulations to show that a newly developed, compact X-ray telescope could be used to map the chemical composition of the entire lunar surface, a vital breakthrough for understanding its geological evolution. Detailed modeling of the detector and a realistic satellite mission show that two years would be enough to map five key elements, while an array of 5-by-5 detectors could improve resolution and get results faster.

The geological evolution of t...

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Novel synthetic biomolecule degrades disease-related proteins

Novel synthetic biomolecule degrades disease-related proteins
Design of IgG-BMC@MPNs for cytosolic entry and proteasome targeting. Credit: Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72967-8

Northwestern Medicine scientists have developed a novel synthetic biomolecular condensate that can degrade intracellular disease-causing proteins, providing a framework for new therapeutic approaches for a wide range of diseases, as detailed in a recent study published in Nature Communications.

Shana Kelley, Ph.D., the Neena B. Schwartz Professor of Chemistry, Biomedical Engineering, and Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and the president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, was senior author of the study.

Targeted protein degradation is an emerging therapeutic strategy that harnesses cells’ own degradation machinery to clear disease-cau...

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