###Drug repositioning using an artificial intelligence platform
Project ID: 2228bd1115 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
UCL Lead department: Division of Medicine
Lead Supervisor: Edith Chan
Project Summary:
Why this research is important? Drug repositioning, where an existing drug is found to be effective against a different disease, has been growing in importance in the past years. The best example is Pfizer’s Viagra for erectile dysfunction, which originally targeted hypertension. Repositioning of drugs is useful as the drug’s safety is already approved and it can shorten the development time by many years. It is relatively economical and can bring treatment to patients faster. However, it is not easy to reposition drugs. Most of the discovery relies on side-effects observed during research. A in silico platform that can facilitate such discovery would be highly desirable.
What you will be doing? Our aim is to build an AI platform to identify potential drug repositioning candidates. First, there is a wealth of research data that can be used for training and building models to predict and prioritize the most relevant and druggable proteins. Then building AI models that can predict what drugs bind to what targets. In this research process, we also aim at improving existing and creating new AI methods and algorithms. Recent successes of AI systems in drug discovery demonstrate this is an approach with huge potential.
Who you will be working with? You will be working with Prof Chan, who has a long scientific career in both pharmaceutical industrial and academic organizations. She is a computational scientist. Also you will be working with Mr Mateusz Kaczyński, who is a computer scientist, has over 13 years of industry experience building data-driven solutions, especially in the field of AI.
Who we are looking for? We are looking for students who is self-driven and independent. They should be passionate about advancing sciences in world health. They want to employ advanced AI platform and should be keen programmer.