Artificial intelligence speeds up drug discovery

An artificially intelligent robot can automatically discover new drugs, improving the cost and speeding up the process.

Engineers at the University of Manchester used a method of smart screening and developed a robot scientist - known as Eve - that can automatically design drugs. The robot has already discovered a compound with anti-cancer properties which can also be used as potential malaria treatment.

Professor Ross King, from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Manchester, said: “Every industry now benefits from automation and science is no exception. Bringing in machine learning to make this process intelligent – rather than just a 'brute force' approach – could greatly speed up scientific progress and potentially reap huge rewards.”

Eve tests a large set of chemical compounds in a technique known as conventional mass screening and is capable of processing over 10,000 compounds per day. The compounds are automatically screened against assays which allow much faster and cheaper generation of results than the bespoke assays that are currently standard.

“Eve exploits its artificial intelligence to learn from early successes in her screens and select compounds that have a high probability of being active against the chosen drug target. A smart screening system, based on genetically engineered yeast, is used. This allows Eve to exclude compounds that are toxic to cells and select those that block the action of the parasite protein while leaving any equivalent human protein unscathed,” said Professor Steve Oliver from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge.

The robot then uses automated hypothesis-led research – it develops and tests hypotheses, runs experiments using laboratory robotics and interprets the results. Eve can also completely capture and digitally curate all aspects of the scientific process.

The scientists believe that Eve can help identify new drugs for malaria and tropical diseases such as African sleeping sickness and Chagas' disease.

“We know what causes these diseases and that we can, in theory, attack the parasites that cause them using small molecule drugs. But the cost and speed of drug discovery and the economic return make them unattractive to the pharmaceutical industry,” said Professor Oliver.

Video:

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