Future-proofing livestock vaccines by anticipating viruses’ next moves

AMES, Iowa (April 7, 2026) – The wave-shaped chart Ratul Chowdhury pulls up on a computer monitor in his office captures the evolutionary cat-and-mouse game his research lab is up against. 

The undulating curves track variants of the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus, which causes a swine disease that annually costs the global pork industry more than $1 billion – damage attributable in part to how quickly it adapts to escape from immune defenses. The PRRS virus has one of the fastest evolutionary rates among known animal-infecting RNA viruses, said Chowdhury, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Iowa State University.

The ability of the PRRS virus to change quickly gives it an evasive capacity that impedes effective vaccination. As hogs’ immune systems figure out how to grab hold of the virus, new variants emerge even more rapidly. That’s what the peaks in the wave graph suggest: the PRRS virus intensifying its mutations in search of designs that won’t trigger an immune response, like a burglar testing different ways to bypass a home security system. 

“The virus shape shifts,” said Chowdhury, a Black and Veatch Building a World of Difference Faculty Fellow and a member of Iowa State’s Nanovaccine Institute. “It tries to create a new structure and a new chemistry so that it can’t be trapped and neutralized.”

An ISU research group led by Chowdhury uses simulations powered by artificial intelligence to learn from and then predict viral mutations to develop vaccines that protect animals from a range of potential variations. With assistance from a state-funded initiative to encourage bioscience innovation and Iowa State’s decades-deep trove of animal health genetic data, Chowdhury’s work on future-proof vaccines is on a path toward commercial development.

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Originally published by Iowa State University in April 2026