Researches identify medicinal plants using machine learning approach

Chemists and mathematicians from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) and Moscow State Universite (MSU) have suggested checking the composition of medical plants by means of machine learning technologies, the Skoltech press service said. They have come up with automatizing computer assisted data analysis based on high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. "Machine learning is when a computer can be taught to analyze the chemical composition of herbal medicine based on the previously known data on chemical analysis," Skoltech said. According to the researchers, the market of herbal remedies has been rapidly developing in the recent years, as it provides an alternative to synthetic drugs. But there are still no existing effective methods of plant material quality control.