Feature: artificial intelligence driving disease prevention, digital health enables personalised medicine, investment takes off
The novel coronavirus first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 has shaken the world like no other pathogen this century. The spread of the virus, now called SARS-CoV-2, and the associated covid-19 illness affected the healthcare systems around the world and other aspects of daily life including education, entertainment, work and socialising.
Vaccine development, which typically involves a lengthy and intricate process, has accelerated in the past year, with different healthtech and biotech ecosystem builders attempting to produce an effective candidate to help deliver a world free from the disease. Two RNA vaccines in particular have been widely authorised by health regulators: the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna vaccines, with over 90% and 94% efficacy, respectively.
RNA vaccines introduce a messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence into the body for the cells to produce the antigens to spark an immune response – mRNA is a family of molecules that…
