In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been making significant strides in the field of drug discovery, particularly in the development of cancer treatments. AI-powered drug discovery platforms are revolutionizing the way researchers design and synthesize potential cancer drugs, enabling them to predict the structure of unknown proteins, identify new drug targets, and develop novel therapeutic strategies.
Researchers have successfully applied a combination of AlphaFold, an AI-powered protein structure database, and an end-to-end AI-powered drug discovery platform called Pharma.AI to design and synthesize a potential drug to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of primary liver cancer, in just 30 days. By using AlphaFold to predict protein structures and Pharma.AI’s biocomputational engine, PandaOmics, and generative chemistry engine, Chemistry42, researchers discovered a novel target for HCC and developed a “novel hit molecule” after synthesizing only seven compounds.