Moderna gathered several billion possibilities for what could cause COVID and used simulated trials with AI to narrow them.

This is a factual claim as of 2024-07-09 that Moderna, in developing its COVID-19 vaccine, gathered several billion possibilities (candidate sequences or options) and used AI-driven simulated trials to narrow them down. True: Moderna or credible reporting documents computational screening or simulation of several billion candidates, assisted by AI, in designing the vaccine. Mostly true: AI-assisted computational screening did take place, but the number of candidates differs moderately (for example, hundreds of millions), or a minor detail of how it was described is off. Mixed: there was substantial computational or AI screening, but it was far smaller in scale or was not simulated trials. Mostly false: Moderna used computational tools for sequence design or manufacturing, but nothing resembling a screen of billions of candidates or simulated trials, so the claim distorts a real use of computing. False: authoritative accounts show the vaccine was designed directly from the published SARS-CoV-2 spike sequence, with no such large-scale screening.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine design enabled by prototype pathogen preparedness - Nature Nature · 5 August 2020

   “the 2P mutations were substituted into S protein residues 986 and 987 to produce prefusion-stabilized SARS-CoV-2 S(2P) protein for structural analysis23 and serological assay development24,25 in silico, without additional experimental validation.”

2. E2 Moderna 2020 Shareholder Letter – Moderna Moderna · 15 March 2022

   “based on good preclinical data and analysis from the previous two years of collaboration with NIH, decided to encode for the full-length Spike (S) protein.”

3. E3 An mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 — Preliminary Report New England Journal of Medicine (via PubMed Central) · 14 July 2020

   “Vaccine development was initiated after the SARS-CoV-2 genome was posted on January 10, 2020”

4. E4 A Guide to Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine - FactCheck.org FactCheck.org · 22 December 2020

   “As soon as the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 became available in January 2020, the team was able to apply that knowledge to design a COVID-19 vaccine”

The peer-reviewed design paper (E1) says the stabilising 2P mutations were substituted into the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in silico for structural analysis and serological assay development, without additional experimental validation. Moderna's own shareholder letter (E2) says it chose to encode the full-length spike protein based on two years of earlier work with NIH. The NEJM trial report (E3) says development began after the genome was posted on January 10, 2020, and FactCheck.org (E4) says the team applied its knowledge to design the vaccine as soon as the sequence became available. None of these accounts describes screening several billion candidates or AI-driven simulated trials; E2 and E4 instead describe the vaccine being designed from the spike sequence once it became available. It could arguably be mostly false instead, because E1 does show computational work on the spike sequence, though none of the evidence describes a screen of candidates.