With the help of artificial intelligence, an international team of researchers has made the first major inroad to date toward a new and more effective way to fight the monkeypox virus (MPXV), which causes a painful and sometimes deadly disease that can be especially dangerous for children, pregnant women and immunocompromised people.

Reporting in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the team found that when mice were injected with a viral surface protein recommended by AI, the animals produced antibodies that neutralized MPXV, suggesting the breakthrough could be used in a new mpox vaccine or antibody therapy.

In 2022, mpox began to spread around the world, causing flulike symptoms and painful rashes and lesions for more than 150,000 people, while causing almost 500 deaths. Vaccines developed to fight smallpox were repurposed amid the outbreak to help the most vulnerable patients, but that vaccine is complicated and costly, due to its manufacture from a whole, weakened virus.