Lab evolution recreates COVID’s path to omicron in months, reveals key conditions

Publication date: Jun 03, 2026

“The omicron mysteryThe evolutionary pathway leading to omicron dominance was not observed under weak selection pressure, and computer simulations revealed why. When we subjected it to in vitro evolution under strong selection pressure, a variant that binds very efficiently to receptors in the respiratory tract rapidly took over. “Even though the viruses did not need to cope with an immune system at all, most of the characteristic omicron mutations still appeared. “The exact same trajectory was observed during the coronavirus pandemic, which has not undergone another major shift since omicron appeared and became dominant at the end of 2021. “Bind or evadeThree major factors determine whether a virus will survive in humans: infectivity, structural stability and the ability to evade the immune system. In healthy individuals, the immune system clears the virus quickly, leaving little time for it to accumulate large numbers of mutations. Researchers therefore hypothesized that omicron may have emerged in immunocompromised individuals, whose infections can persist for months.

Semantics