Fighting for humanity in an evolutionary arms race.
Software development guided by biological evolution
Fighting for humanity in an evolutionary arms race.
Software development guided by biological evolution
Watch our plenary presentation at Harvard's NCRC 2021!
Watch our presentation for the Biodesign Challenge Summit:
We are UBC Virosight, and we present you VPRE (aka "Viper").
Traverse our website and learn how we went from breaking down biological evolution to building a software tool that has implications for every human being on the planet.
We are highly motivated students seeking a fundamental shift in the way we approach pandemics.
We are a group of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of British Columbia, composed of members formerly in UBC iGEM. The global COVID-19 pandemic inhibited us from participating in iGEM, but afforded us the opportunity to participate in the 2020 Biodesign Challenge and cGEM. Our members draw from a diverse range of disciplines, including Microbiology, Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, Applied Biology, and Bioinformatics. Our strong interdisciplinary background gives us a unique approach in this competition, and we can't wait to see where our project takes us.
The evolutionary arms race against viruses has been a battle we've consistently lost since the dawn of humanity.
In recent history, vaccines have become our main defense in this biological war. mRNA vaccines are one of the newest developments, and have shown much promise. They exploit the fact that all viruses rely on host cell translation of mRNA in order to reproduce. By safely introducing parts of this mRNA to our bodies, we can use the immunogenicity of a virus' own proteins to prime our immune systems.
Enveloped viruses use their surface glycoproteins (spike proteins) as a "key" to target cell receptors and enter cells. A virus' best weapon against humanity is their rapid evolution. Changes in a virus' spike proteins can give them the ability to target different receptors and evade our immune systems. It can also allow animal viruses to start infecting humans.
As we encroach further into animal habitats and tip the balance of climate and ecology, we're also putting ourselves at extreme risk.
The advent of the Anthropocene has seen habitat destruction on an irreversible scale. Our intrusion on ecological systems is not just damaging nature, but also exposing us to hosts of unknown and potentially deadly new viruses against which we have no immunity and little defense.
Our Approach
The Viral Predictor for mRNA Evolution (VPRE, or "Viper") is an open source software tool for predicting the evolution of viral spike proteins, in order to inform preemptive and long-lasting vaccine solutions for SARS-CoV-2 and any other virus that may arise in the future.
Our prototype is built around SARS-CoV-2, but VPRE's framework can be adapted to model other viruses. We envision a future where viral populations are monitored, vaccines are developed before pandemics arise, and vaccines stay effective even as viruses evolve. Our goal is to create a software tool that supports this future, and fortifies humanity's defenses against viruses.
Check out our Github here!
