Imitating Viruses: How Technology Can Help Us Be Better Prepared For Pandemics

An interview with Klaus Mainzer

Episode 32 of the De Gruyter Brill on the Wire podcast, hosted by New Books Network, titled "Imitating Viruses: How Technology Can Help Us Be Better Prepared For Pandemics" was published on February 24, 2021 and runs 19 minutes.

February 24, 2021 ·19m · De Gruyter Brill on the Wire

Summary

Viruses are not very different from machines that process information, and thus, how the virus functions can be simulated on a computer. This ability to “imitate” the way viruses behave is particularly useful today, as we battle the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and struggle to prepare for similar events. Dr. Klaus Mainzer, Co-founder and Senior Professor at the Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Center of the University of Tübingen and President of European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg, explains this further in a new podcast episode, in which he talks about his book Leben als Maschine: Wie entschlüsseln wir den Corona-Kode? published by Brill. He explains how bringing together the fields of bioinformatics, machine learning, AI, and big data can help us to decipher the workings of the novel coronavirus and, perhaps, be better equipped to deal with such crises in the future.

Episode Description