Trials of drugs developed with AI could begin this year, Google DeepMind CEO says

The CEO of Google Mind has suggested clinical trials of the first drugs designed with the help of AI could begin this year.

At the World Economic Forum, on Tuesday (January 21), the CEO Demis Hassabis spoke on a panel which discussed the use of AI in propelling scientific progress across fields.

It was there that he said work is ongoing to try and design drugs with the use of artificial intelligence. Hassabis also runs the spin-off Isomorphic Labs and it’s through this that he said: “I think we’ll hopefully have some AI-designed drugs in clinical trials by the end of the year. That’s the plan.”

Isomorphic Labs was founded by Hassabis and is a London-based company which utilizes AI for drug discovery. On its website, it describes itself as being ‘here to advance human health, by reimagining drug discovery with the power and pace of artificial intelligence.’

One of the updates from the lab explains that while the process of bringing new medicines to patients is long and complex, the team’s approach focuses on employing machine learning. “We’re working on building models from first principles to answer the fundamental questions that can change the way we design drugs.”

While the potential benefits of AI in science have been spoken about, the CEO of Google DeepMind also addressed the potential timeline of general scientific breakthroughs within the industry.

“There’s a lot of hype in the area of course, but there’s a lot real, but the hype has sort of run away with itself as often happens in these very hot areas. It’s a bit unfortunate I would say.

“…What I would say is if anything, AI is delivering really impressive things that, you know, hopefully AlphaFold is an example, but it’s overhyped in the near time. I think it’s still underappreciated in the medium to long-term.

“I still don’t think people think understand how revolutionary and transformative this technology is going to be in the sort of five – ten year time scale.”

Featured Image: AI-generated via Ideogram

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