Technion Researchers Harness Artificial Intelligence to Streamline Research and Development of Drugs
Prescription drug development is an arduous and expensive process, which
involves an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars and years of
testing. Patients who are suffering from ailments therefore cannot benefit
from potential treatments due to the extensive hurdles involved in safely
introducing a new drug into the market. Dr. Kira Radinsky and Shahar
Harel of the Faculty of Computer Science at Technion – Israel Institute of
Technology have therefore created a new computer data system that can
efficiently streamline this process. The researchers created a computer
program that fuses existing drugs with specifically designed molecules
that can streamline drug interactions, and then tasked it with generating
1,000 new drugs based on what it learned. The program supplied 35
suggestions that had already been developed, affirming the effectiveness
of the machine learning in mimicking the processes of pharmaceutical
companies during drug development. The researchers hope that this
breakthrough application can expedite new drug development, and help
save and improve patient lives.