Researchers have developed a new way to prevent people falling ill with potential pandemic level viruses – before they have even become a threat.

Dubbed ‘universal vaccine’ technology, the Cambridge University-led team believe that it can be used to develop jabs that offer a broad protection from thousands of variants of viruses – such as coronaviruses or Ebola – in a single formula.

For the first time in history, the team used AI to design a ‘super-antigen’ that gives lasting protection against a broad range of viruses, even as they mutate.

The key difference here is that the vaccines which are currently offered for flu and Covid-19 use antigens from specific virus strains or variants that have already been detected in humans – doctors are effectively always playing ‘catch up’ as the viruses mutate and evolve.

This is why traditional vaccines can only offer limited protection and must be regularly updated and readministered as a booster jab.

But the new vaccine technology would allow people to be protected against viruses before they mutate, potentially stopping pandemic-triggering strains before they can take hold.

‘We’ve converted vaccine development from being reactive to being future proof,’ said lead researcher Professor Jonathan Heeney from the Lab of Viral Zoonotics, University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine.

‘Our vaccines will continue to provide protection against viruses even as they mutate into new strains.

‘We’ve overcome the problem of traditional vaccines, which have limited protection.

‘It means we can escape the constant cycle of chasing the virus variants circulating in humans and updating the vaccines to try to catch up, like a dog chasing its tail.’

The results of the first human trials of the revolutionary new jab, published in the Journal of Infection, look promising and found the new jabs to be safe, well tolerated and causing minimal side-effects.

Thirty-nine people aged between 18 and 50 were given a universal Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine, which covers a large group of viruses that occur in nature including SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID pandemic.

Read More: New ‘AI vaccine’ could protect against all viruses including ‘Covid’ and Ebola