nference and Mayo Clinic Study Shows Childhood and Adult Vaccinations May Provide Defense Against COVID-19

ROCHESTER, Minn. and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- nference, the biomedical technology company, today announced publication in Scientific Reports of a study that analyzes Mayo Clinic data with nference artificial intelligence software and reveals potential cross-protective effects of existing vaccines against Covid-19 infection. The analysis indicates that individuals who previously received a number of traditional vaccines, such as for polio, measles, and flu, have a reduced risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, likely as a result of "immune training," whereby innate immune cells are retrained so that when they encounter a subsequent challenge they have a more robust response.

Scientific Reports is an online multidisciplinary, open access journal from the publishers of Nature.

"Mayo Clinic and nference researchers applied our technology to produce results that previously would have taken months if done manually," said Venky Soundararajan, PhD, co-founder and chief scientific officer of nference. "What we discovered represents compelling evidence that vaccinations are a critical element in prevention of disease, even diseases one doesn't anticipate. We know now, more than ever, that greater acceptance of inoculations can have enormous health benefits all over the world."

The publication "Exploratory Analysis of Immunization Records Highlights Decreased SARS-CoV-2 Rates in Individuals with Recent Non-COVID-19 Vaccinations'' compares matched pairs of vaccinated and unvaccinated patients using state-of-the-art nference augmented intelligence software. Immunization records were examined of 137,037 patients tested in the Mayo Clinic health system for coronavirus infection. The results indicate that people who received childhood vaccinations for diseases like measles and polio, as well as adult flu shots and other recent vaccinations, have lower coronavirus infection rates than those who had not been similarly vaccinated.

"If you've received a number of different vaccines previously, your risk of having a positive SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis was about 60-to-80 percent of the rate of positive tests in unvaccinated patients," said Andrew Badley, MD, of Mayo Clinic, Enterprise Chair of COVID-19 Task Force. "If you think of your immune system as a muscle, the more often you exercise that muscle, the stronger it is."

New approaches like that of the collaboration between Mayo Clinic and nference are expected by the biomedical community to play an increasingly vital role in advancing diagnostic and therapeutic research and development and clinical care.

About nference
Through its powerful augmented intelligence software nferX®, nference is transforming health care by making biomedical knowledge computable. Its partnership with Mayo Clinic has given nference an opportunity to synthesize more than 100 years of institutional knowledge, producing real-world evidence in real time by converting large amounts of data into deep insights to advance discovery and development of diagnostics and therapeutics. nference is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Follow nference on LinkedIn and Twitter. Visit us at nference.ai.