How artificial intelligence is revolutionising drug design

Imagine you wanted to design a drug for a new disease, 'Disease X', about which little is known. Imagine then that you have a machine that could use all the available data in the world about Disease X to identify a potential mechanism of disease and use this to predict which molecules within this mechanism could make suitable targets for drugs against the disease. Then, a machine would virtually design a drug targeting these optimal molecules, building it bit by bit and continuously checking with the target's structure to ensure activity at the desired binding site. Once the drug was "built", it could then be synthesised and, following various rounds of in vitro, in vivo, and clinical testing to validate its efficacy, the drug could be used in clinical practice. Although a machine like this does not yet exist, advocates of artificial intelligence (AI) propose that AI has the potential to revolutionise drug design, turning this imaginary scenario -- at least in part -- into a reality.