Disease X is a hypothetical term used by the World Health Organization and scientists to describe an unknown pathogen that could cause a future epidemic or pandemic. The concept highlights the risk of new viral threats emerging and spreading rapidly among humans, as shown by SARS-CoV-2: a single spillover event that ultimately overwhelmed healthcare systems and affected billions of people worldwide. While no one can predict when or where the next Disease X will appear, research suggests the probability of a pandemic similar to COVID-19 is about 1 in 50 each year. Read more on CEPI’s work on Disease X here: cepi.net/disease-x
CEPI is building a vaccine library against Disease X
CEPI’s Disease X vaccine library is a strategic initiative to prepare against unknown pathogens with pandemic potential. It is a knowledge base consisting of key information on specific viruses in prioritized viral families (e.g. sequences, receptor binding proteins) as well as software and tools to very rapidly design vaccine antigens in case of an epidemic or pandemic. Building a knowledge base grouped by high-risk viral families will allow rapid design for any Disease X emergence within the prioritized families.
CEPI is harnessing AI to prepare for the next pandemic
Building a global AI platform for pandemic preparedness: The Pandemic Preparedness Engine for Disease X (PPX)
CEPI and partners are rapidly accelerating and exponentially improving how scientists can design and deliver new vaccines against emerging and re-emerging pathogens through development of a new AI platform called the Pandemic Preparedness Engine for Disease X (PPX). This end-to-end digital research and development system aims to integrate a wealth of data from a wide array of sources into a single, secure platform in order to vastly shorten the timeline for designing vaccines to fight pandemics. Read more about the PPX and how CEPI is utilizing AI to fight pandemics here: cepi.net/building-global-ai-platform-pandemic-preparedness
Using AI to establish new laboratory techniques, design immunogens, and rank virus families with greatest pandemic threat
CEPI is supporting a consortium to use AI technology with established computational and laboratory techniques to speed the development for future vaccines against Disease X within 100 days of an outbreak. The consortium, being led by the Houston Methodist Research Institute (HMRI) and the University of Leipzig's Institute of Drug Discovery (IDDL), includes experts from the Argonne National Laboratory (University of Chicago), J Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla Institute, The University of Texas Medical Branch, The University of Texas, Austin, and Oxford University, will aim to identify and optimize computational designs of potential epitopes and stabilized structural viral proteins and validate them using established preclinical models and early clinical trials. Read more about CEPI’s approach in using AI to speed up vaccine development against Disease X here: cepi.net/using-ai-speed-vaccine-development-against-disease-x
Additionally, CEPI is supporting a viral risk ranking tool called the Virus Intelligence and Strategic Threat Assessment (VISTA) project, developed by the University of California at Davis (UC Davis). This is ongoing work from UC Davis’ SpillOver project. Now also in partnership with the Biothreats Emergence, Analysis and Communications Network (BEACON), an open-source informal surveillance program based at Boston University’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (CEID), the VISTA project aims to support CEPI’s 100 Days Mission by providing near real-time identification and prioritization of emerging virus threats to inform CEPI’s virus family prioritization and investments. Read more about the VISTA project here: grandchallenges.ucdavis.edu/vista/
Resources
Paper:Azizi A, Kamuyu G, Spencer P, Bernasconi V. Future directions in combating outbreaks at CEPI Centralized Laboratory Network.Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics 2025 December;21(1):2561458pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40963419/
