Drug research with AI: Lamarr Institute, b-it and TüCAD2 join forces

The Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it), the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and the Tübingen Center for Academic Drug Discovery (TüCAD2) are working together to make drug research more efficient. They want to use AI to discover new active substances that can treat protein kinase malfunctions.

Protein kinases play a central role in cellular signaling pathways and their dysfunction can cause serious diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders or autoimmune diseases. "Advances in AI-assisted drug development promise new conceptual possibilities for improved and accelerated drug development," says Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bajorath, Principal Investigator at the Lamarr Institute and Professor at b-it. Bajorath's team contributes its expertise in the development of computational methods for the search for protein kinase drugs.

TüCAD2 is a center for academic drug research in Germany and has experience in the fields of drug synthesis, pharmacology and biological testing. In collaboration with TüCAD2, the researchers aim to advance academic drug discovery and development. The team at the Lamarr Institute and b-it is working on linking data with specific context and interdisciplinary knowledge to improve the quality of AI-based predictions.

Explainable AI

It is crucial for the success of this cooperation that the AI experts involved focus on "Explainable AI" so that it becomes clear why an AI makes a certain prediction. This means that the underlying machine learning processes must be transparent and understandable for an interdisciplinary audience. According to Bajorath, this is the only way to exploit the full potential of AI in the life sciences, according to a press release from the Lamarr Institute.

AI revolution of the pharmaceutical companies

Pharmaceutical companies are also increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to accelerate research and commercialization. This was made clear by the industry and other stakeholders at an annual meeting organized by the major bank JP Morgan at the beginning of the year. Companies such as Sanofi and Biontech want to develop into AI groups, while chip supplier Nvidia sees potential in the market for pharmaceutical research in particular. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also been hoping for accelerated vaccine development using AI for years.

(mack)