How artificial intelligence could guide drug discovery

Researchers can use AI to reduce the number of experiments needed to develop new medications. Drug discovery is traditionally a high-risk and resource-intensive process -- so much so that it has drawn comparisons to gambling. Brendan Frey, a U of T professor, put it bluntly: "It's like the Big Pharma companies come into a casino, put a million-dollar coin into a slot machine, and with some probability like 10 per cent or something, they get a win." But recently, a growing trend in the field is reducing uncertainty around drug discovery by using artificial intelligence (AI) as a prediction tool. Dr. Christine Allen, a professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, together with post-doctoral researcher Pauric Bannigan, recently published a review paper on the subject in the Journal of Controlled Release.