Artificial intelligence identifies new anti-aging compounds

The entire article is summed up in the title! they do not tell us what they are, this is as close as they come to a revelation:

“In addition, these compounds – which all bind Bcl-2, a protein that regulates apoptosis and is also a chemotherapy target – exhibited favorable toxicity profiles in hemolysis and genotoxicity experiments. Testing these compounds in 80-week-old-mice (an age corresponding to 80-year-old humans), the researchers found that they efficiently removed senescent cells and reduced the expression of genes associated to senescence in the kidneys.”

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Unless I’m missing something this is not “artificial intelligence”. A computer was programmed to scan a database (or research articles) to find compounds that met certain criteria which were provided by the programmers. It is extremely useful, but not intelligent.

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The three compounds appear to be named BRD-K20733377, BRD-K56819078 and BRD-K44839765. These were all compared to a molecule the researchers were previously aware of called ABT-737. This can be read about in the description of the figure here:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Validation-of-identified-compounds-in-a-model-of-therapy-induced-senescence-a-d_fig3_370525031

Which is linked to from the study’s Research Gate page:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370525031_Discovering_small-molecule_senolytics_with_deep_neural_networks

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Thank you for digging that up :slight_smile:

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Regarding the methods of the study, I also had the impression that they had simply scanned a database from the article from the news site, but the study’s page in Nature suggests they used a neural network named Chemprop.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-023-00415-z

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It is confusing how in one article they say they “screened” compounds and in another they say the computer “predicted” compounds. Not being a computer expert myself, it sounds fishy.

Edit: The computer predicted (selected) 2000+ compounds out of 800,000. Then the researchers screened the 2000 to come up with three likely candidates. I still don’t think it is A.I.

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Ah - thats poor wording by the author of the article. “Predicted” to me suggests that its predicting a molecular structure that should work, one that is not a natural molecule they’ve just found.

I’m sure there are many different approaches with AI / machine learning - but screening compounds doesn’t sound that sophisticated.

I think the more interesting area is actually designing new drugs and biologics to accomplish a specific task.

there is a really good book about the early days of structured drug design I recommend if anyone is interested:

https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Molecule-Companys-Perfect/dp/0671510576

Join journalist Barry Werth as he pulls back the curtain on Vertex, a start-up pharmaceutical company, and witness firsthand the intense drama being played out in the pioneering and hugely profitable field of drug research.

Founded by Joshua Boger, a dynamic Harvard- and Merck-trained scientific whiz kid, Vertex is dedicated to designing—atom by atom—both a new life-saving immunosuppressant drug, and a drug to combat the virus that causes AIDS.

You will be hooked from start to finish, as you go from the labs, where obsessive, fiercely competitive scientists struggle for a breakthrough, to Wall Street, where the wheeling and dealing takes on a life of its own, as Boger courts investors and finally decides to take Vertex public.

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