Quantum Computing to accelerate the design of effective infectious disease vaccines

Project Team: Heather Wilson, Steven Rayan, Zahed Khatooni, Gordon Broderick, Joyce Reimer, Kira Comfort (VIDO), Aspen Erlandsson (University of Toronto)

Protection against infectious diseases hinges upon molecular fragments of the invading organism binding to immune cell receptors and triggering a robust immune response. The extreme diversity of these immune cell receptors and molecular signatures in the infectious agent challenges even the best conventional supercomputers. To overcome this, we will leverage the latest advances in a new type of computer, namely the quantum computer.  This new era of computers can in principle solve in seconds problems that would take years to resolve on a classical computer if at all. Drawing on some of the odd properties of quantum physics, it achieves this by sifting through multiple solutions simultaneously (superposition) and instantaneously sharing information with its neighboring processors (entanglement). By using these properties, we will significantly increase the scale and detail with which we evaluate the shape of candidate vaccine molecules and how well they might be recognized by our immune systems.  We will focus specifically on the 23 proteins from the deadly porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PPRSV) and predict how molecular fragments might bind to the over 550 swine leukocyte antigen (SLA), or pig immune cell receptors.  The best candidate vaccine components will be evaluated using immune cell cultures and highly sensitive molecular profiling.