(ANSA) – MILAN, 05 NOV – Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has announced the birth of a new startup that aims to discover new drugs and medical treatments, using artificial intelligence. Isomorphic Labs will use the computer platforms of DeepMind, acquired in 2014 by Google, to accelerate scientific research. The basis is AlphaFold2, a program that makes predictions about the structure of proteins. Conceived as a deep learning system, in its second version, the engine is able to predict the 3D structure of a protein, directly from its amino acid sequence. “We believe that using computational and artificial intelligence methods we can help scientists take their work to the next level by accelerating the process of drug discovery,” said Demis Hassabis, founder and CEO of Isomorphic Labs, in the official note released by Alphabet. Hassabis, who is also CEO of DeepMind, will serve as CEO of the startup, which will draw on both current Alphabet employees and external scientists and researchers. Isomorphic Labs is not the first company born with the aim of discovering new drugs through AI-powered algorithms. Since 2012 Atomwise has been operating in Toronto, a university startup that wants to tackle the problem of drug development costs.
According to the latest study by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information, the price to create a new drug is, on average, 1.3 billion dollars. As the report explains, researchers currently physically synthesize each individual component and then test it in the laboratory under conditions similar to humans. Using AI would make testing processes faster, safer and less costly. (HANDLE).
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Source From: Ansa
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