There\u2019s no denying Artificial Intelligence is suffering from a bit of an image problem right now, so it\u2019s nice to hear it could soon be doing something positive for my crow\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n
When it comes to medical research, AI is changing the game of drug discovery and development, as well as finding new uses for existing generic drugs.<\/p>\n
\u2018AI can turn a search that might take years into one that takes days,\u2019 said Anthony Liveris, CEO of Proto Axiom, an Australian life-sciences venture capital firm.<\/p>\n
Within the industry, it\u2019s known as \u2018in silico\u2019,<\/a> a reference to the silicon-based chips AI runs on, instead of the traditional \u2018in vitro\u2019 method.<\/p>\n And the potential for AI to solve some of the cosmetic industry\u2019s toughest challenges is something that the peptide-promoting, sunscreen-slopping \u2018looksmaxxers\u2019 like me should probably pay attention to.<\/p>\n A recent survey of 80 biopharma leaders<\/a> found that AI was compressing drug developers\u2019 preclinical costs and timelines by as much as 70 per cent.<\/p>\n A good example is AlphaFold, an AI system developed by Google\u2019s DeepMind that predicts the complex structure of proteins from their genetic sequences.<\/p>\n AlphaFold has revolutionised research in drug discovery, disease modelling, and biology, so much so that its creators were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.<\/p>\n In a breakthrough study published last week in Nature <\/a>Communications, researchers used AlphaFold to develop an enzyme that reversed molecular markers associated with ageing by up to 50 years.<\/p>\n To use an analogy \u2013 just as a steak browns in a hot pan, sugars and proteins in our bodies slowly react over time, creating the human equivalent of caramelisation.<\/p>\n Known by scientists as advanced glycation end-products (yes, the acronym AGE is not lost on me either), these compounds accumulate in collagen, contributing to the ageing process.<\/p>\n When tested on human skin of 75-year-old donors, the enzyme was able to reduce AGE levels down to those of a 30-year-old.<\/p>\n It\u2019s proof of concept for a cosmetic \u2018one and done\u2019 treatment that will allow patients to remove decades of damage.<\/p>\n But anti-ageing is only scratching the surface of what AI-assisted drug discovery may be capable of.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, an Australian man used AI to help develop a personalised cancer vaccine<\/a> for his dog, while here in Melbourne researchers are using AI to develop a new treatment for male pattern baldness<\/a>.<\/p>\n And sometimes the biggest impacts don\u2019t come from inventing a new medicine but in discovering a better use for ones we already have.<\/p>\n Because large-scale AI-driven simulations can switch thousands of genes on and off in digital models to understand how they affect disease, they can find new uses for existing off-patent generic drugs, where there is currently little financial incentive for big pharmaceutical companies to pursue them.<\/p>\n \u2018Its most immediate value is in reducing enormous search spaces because it can help scientists move from millions of possible targets, structures or compounds to the small number most worth testing,\u2019 added Liveris.<\/p>\n