IBM makes AI tools and resources available to coronavirus researchers

IBM today announced the launch of services intended to furnish researchers with resources to fight the novel coronavirus. The company made molecules identified by AI as therapeutic candidates available under an open license, and it introduced a free version of its Functional Genomics Platform to support genome features discovery. Additionally, it provided free access to over 1,000 pieces of evidence-based curated COVID-19 and infectious disease content, and it rolled out an AI search engine trained on the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset to allow researchers to quickly find answers to questions. According to Dario Gil, director of IBM Research, IBM created a new AI-generative framework that can rapidly create novel peptides, proteins, drug candidates, and materials, which it applied against three targets to create 3,000 new small molecules as potential COVID-19 therapeutic candidates. Researchers can study them via an interactive tool to understand their characteristics and relationship to COVID-19, and to identify molecules that might have desirable properties to be pursued in drug development.