Evaxion presents AI-designed polio vaccine concepts at World Vaccine Congress in collaboration with Gates Foundation

Evaxion Presents AI-Designed Polio Vaccine Concepts at World Vaccine Congress

Evaxion A/S will present novel polio vaccine design concepts developed with the Gates Foundation at the World Vaccine Congress in Washington D.C. from March 31 to April 2. The designs, created using the company's AI-Immunology platform, aim to combine strengths of existing vaccines to support global eradication efforts.

Current polio vaccines rely on inactivated or attenuated virus versions. Each approach has limitations in certain settings. Researchers have pursued a next-generation vaccine combining the advantages of both for decades without success.

Evaxion's AI-Immunology platform generated two design approaches: hybrid capsid designs and de novo designed B-cell antigens. The company says initial results support further development of these concepts.

CMV Vaccine Program Data Also Presented

Evaxion will also present data from EVX-V1, a cytomegalovirus vaccine program. The multi-component vaccine combines AI-discovered novel CMV antigens with AI-optimized versions of established antigens.

Birgitte Rønø, chief scientific officer at Evaxion, said the polio work demonstrates how the platform enables new approaches to diseases where adequate options remain unavailable despite decades of research.

Presentation Schedule

• Polio vaccine design: April 1 at 4:40 p.m. ET, Room 202A. Presenter: Thomas Trolle, PhD, Director of Bioinformatics.
• CMV vaccine research: April 2 at 10:25 a.m. ET, Room 202A. Presenter: Pär Comstedt, VP of Infectious Disease Vaccine Development.

Both presentations fall under the Emerging & Re-emerging Diseases track.

What This Means for Product Development

For product development teams, the work illustrates how AI for Product Development can accelerate design cycles in regulated industries. The platform reduced discovery timelines by automating antigen identification and optimization-steps that traditionally require years of lab work.

The approach also demonstrates how AI for Science & Research can tackle problems where conventional methods have plateaued. Rather than incremental improvements to existing vaccines, the AI identified fundamentally different design architectures.

Polio remains endemic in two countries despite vaccine availability for over 60 years. The new designs represent a potential path to complete eradication by addressing gaps in current vaccine strategies.