ABSTRACT
Viral vaccines can lose their efficacy as the genomes of targeted viruses rapidly evolve, resulting in new variants that may evade vaccine-induced immunity. This process is apparent in the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants which have the potential to undermine vaccination efforts and cause further outbreaks. Predictive vaccinology points to a future of pandemic preparedness in which vaccines can be developed preemptively based in part on predictive models of viral evolution. Thus, modeling the trajectory of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein evolution could have value for mRNA vaccine development. Traditionally, in silico sequence evolution has been modeled discretely, while there has been limited investigation into continuous models. Here we present the Viral Predictor for mRNA Evolution (VPRE), an open-source software tool which learns from mutational patterns in viral proteins and models their most statistically likely evolutionary trajectories. We trained a variational autoencoder with real-time and simulated SARS-CoV-2 genome data from Australia to encode discrete spike protein sequences into continuous numerical variables. To simulate evolution along a phylogenetic path, we trained a Gaussian process model with the numerical variables to project spike protein evolution up to five months in advance. Our predictions mapped primarily to a sequence that differed by a single amino acid from the most reported spike protein in Australia within the prediction timeframe, indicating the utility of deep learning and continuous latent spaces for modeling viral protein evolution. VPRE can be readily adapted to investigate and predict the evolution of viruses other than SARS-CoV-2 in temporal, geographic, and lineage-specific pathways.
ABSTRACT
After observing the flattening in one patient's hypertrophic scar after treatment with the homoeopathic medicine Graphites, we decided to look at the effect of Graphites on hypertrophic burn scars. 5 patients with scarring subsequent to burns were treated with 2 different dilutions of potentized Graphites for 3 months. Of the 4 patients who completed the treatment 3 described a subjective improvement in itch, one patient with an open wound of 5 month's duration saw this heal after the first dose of Graphites. 2 patients chose to continue Graphites 6c at the final follow-up. All patient's scars improved both on patient and independent assessor scoring over the treatment period, but is was not possible to determine to what extent this was due to the treatment. Further study is required before undertaking a more formal trial
