Researchers have developed a pioneering AI “matchmaker” that pairs together existing cancer drugs for use in nanomedicine.
Prescribing a combination of two or more medications is already an established practice – known as combination therapy — that can prove highly effective.
But a team at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, has gone beyond simply identifying separate medications that will work well together.
These scientists have developed technology that singles out drug pairs whose molecular structure allows them to join together chemically as nanoparticles, measuring just a millionth of a millimeter. Their findings are published in the Journal of Controlled Release.
Administering medicines as nanoparticles – or nanomedicines – has many advantages, allowing doctors to use lower doses, target specific cells and minimize side effects.
The artificial intelligence tool developed at the Technion trawls published articles on existing cancer treatments, gathering information that allows it to predict pairs of drugs that will work well together and, crucially, that are able to chemically assemble into combined nanoparticles.
Prof. Yosi Shamay describes the new approach as a “synergy of synergies” or a “meta-synergy.”
The first synergy is the combination of two drugs so that their combined effect is greater than using each of them in isolation.
The second synergy is identifying which of these drugs pairs can be used in nanomedicine, bringing a whole array of new benefits.
The AI tool has so far proposed 1,985 possible nanomedicine drug combinations to treat 70 types of cancer.
Keep reading at israel21c.org.
