Artificial Intelligence predicts how patients with viral infection will fare

New York: A team of researchers has used an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm to sift through terabytes of gene expression data to look for shared patterns in patients with past pandemic viral infections, including SARS, MERS and swine flu. The researchers, including Pradipta Ghosh from the University of California San Diego, indicated two telltale signatures. One, a set of 166 genes, reveals how the human immune system responds to viral infections. A second set of 20 signature genes predicts the severity of a patient's disease. For example, the need to hospitalise or use a mechanical ventilator.