Aussie researchers invent AI-driven drug discovery tool
New AI tool can rapidly predict drug interactions and speed up the discovery process.
Researchers at Australia’s Monash University have published the details of a new AI tool to speed up the process of drug discovery.
The tool, dubbed PSICHIC – which stands for PhySIcoCHemICal – uses sequencing data to understand protein-molecule interactions, and does away with more costly drug discovery processes, which are also often more expensive.
“Comparison of experimental and AI predictions of a large compound library against the A1 receptor – a potential therapeutic target for many diseases – demonstrated PSICHIC could effectively screen and identify a novel drug candidate,” Dr Lauren May, co-lead author from the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said in a statement.
“Moreover, PSICHIC was able to distinguish the functional effects of the compound or, in other words, the way in which the drug might affect our bodies.”
Professor Geoff Webb from Monash’s Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence said that while there are other tools on the market, they’re often too expensive and lacking in the ability to predict a drug’s functional effects.
“The application of AI approaches to enhance the affordability and accuracy of drug discovery is a rapidly expanding area. With PSICHIC, our team has eliminated the need for 3D structures to map protein-molecule interactions, which is a costly and often restrictive requirement,” Professor Webb said.
“Instead, PSICHIC identifies the unique ‘fingerprints’ of specific protein-molecule interactions by applying AI to analyse thousands of protein-molecule interactions, resulting in faster and more effective screening of drug compounds without the need for rendering protein or molecule structures in high-resolution 3D.”
The PSICHIC team’s data and code have all been made available to the scientific community.
You can learn more about PSICHIC here.
David Hollingworth
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.