Using artificial intelligence to find new uses for existing medications

Scientists have developed a machine-learning method that crunches massive amounts of data to help determine which existing medications could improve outcomes in diseases for which they are not prescribed. The goal of this is to speed up "drug repurposing" -- the idea of using an already developed drug to treat another symptom. Figuring out what other ailments can be treated by an existing drug is no small task, though: it takes an enormous amount of time, data, and experimentation. That's where AI comes in. AI can be used to significantly speed up the process. Drug repurposing is an attractive pursuit because it could lower the risk associated with safety testing of new medications and dramatically reduce the time it takes to get a drug into the marketplace for clinical use.

Read the full article here.