Covid Research Panel
Pengyu Hong, PhD
Professor
Department of Computer Science
Brandeis University
(September 25, 2020)
Computational models are essential to predicting how a virus might mutate (change) or spread. These predictions can be helped by including information on related viruses and how they have mutated. Dr. Hong and his team made use of what was already known about SARS-CoV2 viruses to create a predictive model of possible outcomes from different mutations. His model can look forward to identify which populations may be most at risk from a particular mutation and can point to potential targets for treatments.