Following President Donald Trump’s announcement of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers across the United States, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said the project may be used to develop mRNA vaccines.
“A new American company that will invest $500 billion, at least, in AI infrastructure in the United States, creating over 100,000 American jobs almost immediately,” Trump said. “This monumental undertaking is a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential under a new president.”
“One of the most exciting things we’re working on … is our cancer vaccine,” Ellison said. “You can do early cancer detection … with a blood test, and using AI to look at the blood test, you can find the cancers that are actually seriously threatening the person.”
“You can make that vaccine, that mRNA vaccine, you can make that robotically, again using AI, in about 48 hours,” he explained. “So imagine early cancer detection, the development of a cancer vaccine for your particular cancer, aimed at you, and have that vaccine available in 48 hours. This is the promise of AI and the promise of the future.”
Former President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week that it awarded Moderna $590 million to “accelerate the development of mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccines and enhance mRNA platform capabilities so that the U.S. is better prepared to respond to other emerging infectious diseases,” a press release says.
Moderna will “design and test an H7N9 mRNA pandemic influenza vaccine in a phase 3 clinical study. If successful, this vaccine potentially could become the first licensed for H7N9,” the release adds, noting that the company will also “design up to four additional novel pandemic influenza vaccines and test preliminary safety and immunogenicity (generating an immune system response) in phase 1 clinical studies.”
