Bio-IT World

May 8, 2019 While artificial intelligence (AI) still tends to be underfunded by big pharma, machine learning (ML) is creating efficiencies in the drug development process and collaboration between biologists and ML experts is becoming more commonplace. Companies are still formulating their overall AI strategy, but hopes are high for a future with "killer apps" for predicting toxicity and drug response. Those were among the themes that emerged from an "AI in Practice" keynote panel session at the recent Bio-IT World Congress & Expo in Boston. Participating panelists were Anne E. Carpenter, PhD, senior director of the Imaging Platform at Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; Iya Khalil, PhD, chief commercial officer and co-founder of GNS Healthcare; Mariana Nacht, PhD, chief scientific officer, Vivid Biosciences; and Susie Stephens, PhD, senior director of Oncology & Vaccine R&D Information Technology at Pfizer. Increasingly, more user-friendly AI tools are getting into the hands of people with domain knowledge who understand the problems that most need solving, says Carpenter.