Artificial Intelligence discovers new treatment for child brain cancer

Scientists have used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a drug regime for children with a type of deadly brain cancer, where survival rates have not improved for 50 years. Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a rare and fast-growing type of brain tumour in children. These types of tumours are difficult to remove surgically because they are diffuse, which means they do not have well-defined borders suitable for operations. A quarter of children with DIPG have a mutation in a gene known as ACVR1, but there are currently no treatments approved to target this mutation. In a new study, scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR), and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust were able to use AI to discover that combining the drug everolimus with another called vandetanib could enhance vandetanib's capacity to pass through the blood-brain barrier in order to treat the cancer.