How AI robots hunt new drugs for crippling nerve disease

LONDON (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence robots are turbo-charging the race to find new drugs for the crippling nerve disorder ALS, or motor neurone disease. The condition, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, attacks and kills nerve cells controlling muscles, leading to weakness, paralysis and, ultimately, respiratory failure. There are only two drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to slow the progression of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), one available since 1995 and the other approved just this year. About 140,000 new cases are diagnosed a year globally and there is no cure for the disease, famously suffered by cosmologist Stephen Hawking. "Many doctors call it the worst disease in medicine and the unmet need is huge," said Richard Mead of the Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience, who has found artificial intelligence (AI) is already speeding up his work. They analyze huge chemical, biological and medical databases, alongside reams of scientific papers, far quicker than humanly possible, throwing up new biological targets and potential drugs.