Artificially-intelligent robot can boost search for new drugs

An artificially-intelligent 'robot scientist' has discovered that a compound shown to have anti-cancer properties can also be used in the fight against malaria, UK researchers say.
The 'robot scientist', named Eve, could make drug discovery faster and much cheaper, researchers said.
Robot scientists can automatically develop and test hypotheses to explain observations, run experiments using laboratory robotics, interpret the results to amend their hypotheses, and then repeat the cycle.
In 2009, Adam, a robot scientist developed by researchers at the Universities of Aberystwyth and Cambridge, became the first machine to independently discover new scientific knowledge.
The same team has now developed Eve, based at the University of Manchester, whose purpose is to speed up the drug discovery process and make it more economical.

In the study published in the Royal Society journal Interface, researchers described how the robot can help identify promising new drug candidates for malaria and neglected tropical diseases such as African sleeping sickness and Chagas' disease.

"Eve exploits its artificial intelligence to learn from early successes in her screens and select compounds that have a high probability of being active against the chosen drug target," said Professor Steve Oliver from the Cambridge Systems Biology Centre and the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge.
"A smart screening system, based on genetically engineered yeast, is used. This allows Eve to exclude compounds that are toxic to cells and select those that block the action of the parasite protein while leaving any equivalent human protein unscathed.

"This reduces the costs, uncertainty, and time involved in drug screening, and has the potential to improve the lives of millions of people worldwide," Oliver said.
Eve's robotic system is capable of screening over 10,000 compounds per day.
In an experiment, researchers developed assays targeting key molecules from parasites responsible for diseases such as malaria, Chagas' disease and schistosomiasis and tested against these a library of approximately 1,500 clinically approved compounds.
Through this, Eve showed that a compound that has previously been investigated as an anti-cancer drug inhibits a key molecule known as DHFR in the malaria parasite.
Drugs that inhibit this molecule are currently routinely used to protect against malaria but the emergence of strains of parasites resistant to existing drugs means that the search for new drugs is becoming increasingly more urgent.

"Despite extensive efforts, no one has been able to find a new antimalarial that targets DHFR and is able to pass clinical trials. Eve's discovery could be even more significant than just demonstrating a new approach to drug discovery," said Professor Ross King at the University of Manchester.