On May 24, 2022, scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the University of Massachusetts Medical School announced they had developed a machine-learning model that can analyze millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes and predict which viral variants will likely dominate and cause surges in COVID-19 cases. The findings appeared in Science.

The researchers trained the machine-learning model using 6 million SARS-CoV-2 genomes that were in the GISAID database in January 2022. They showed how their tool can also estimate the effect of genetic mutations on the virusﾒs fitness ﾗ its ability to multiply and spread through a population.