MIT Researchers Use AI to Accelerate RNA Vaccine Development

The COMET Model

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Aug. 15, 2025, published a study detailing how a new machine-learning model can dramatically speed up the development of RNA vaccines and therapies. The research, published in Nature Nanotechnology, introduces a model called COMET, which is inspired by the transformer architecture used in large language models like ChatGPT.

The model is designed to solve a key challenge in RNA-based medicine: designing the optimal lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) used to deliver fragile RNA molecules into cells. A typical LNP has four chemical components, and the vast number of possible combinations …