Applying AI to Pharmaceutical Research

The progress for technology is phenomenal over the years and researchers are determined to apply artificial intelligence to improve pharmaceutical research.

Gisbert Schneider, a professor in Computer-Assisted Drug Design at ETH Zurich, with the help of his team, has successfully applied AI into pharmaceutical practices by having more efficient systems to identify chemical compositions of products. This process identifies multiple molecules within a database based on similarity in scaffolds to the targeted composition. Through this advancement, Schneider and other researchers are determined to create more drugs that would pair up and target each of the 400,000 human proteins in our body systems. These findings would serve as alternatives with the same biomolecular composition and effects as the natural compounds.

However, the medical research journey has yet to be completed. Schneider and his team are determined to improve this method to help find more simplified alternatives with similar effects in effort to reduce efficiency and cost to rebuild certain proteins or compounds. That way, drug manufacturing would be improved and provide more accessible products for all.