Groundbreaking Medical AI Program to Hit Market in Near Future

The University of Alabama in Huntsville has once again demonstrated the value of its concentration of technical expertise, this time with the development of a self-learning Artificial Intelligence program with revolutionary applications for the pharmaceutical industry. 

The project, led by internationally-recognized machine learning expert Dr. Vineetha Menon, is the result of a collaborative effort between the departments of Computer Science and Biological Sciences, chaired by Dr. Jerome Baudry, with additional contributions from doctoral students Shivangi Gupta and Armin Ahmadi. 

The technology utilizes complex analytics programs to rapidly observe vast quantities of complex interactions between chemicals within living cells. The application of sheer computational power to these interactions enable biophysicists to more quickly and efficiently discern the laws governing those interactions, resulting in faster, more precise, and even less expensive development of pharmaceuticals. 

“From a philosophical point of view, it is not something entirely novel; observing nature and deducting general rules from these observations has always been a part of science. But nowadays, the sheer amount and complexity of what is observed would make it impossible for a scientist to analyze the phenomena of interest, even if they were spending their life on a problem,” says Dr. Baudry. “Add the inherent complexity of biological events, and you have a massive amount of vastly complex data that we are making sense of.” 

Project lead Dr. Menon credits the atmosphere of interdisciplinary collaboration at UAH for the success of the project. 

“Contemporary research is interdisciplinary and collaborative,” she says. “You don’t really have individuals like Einstein or Curie or Pasteur anymore, who worked by themselves in their laboratories in their ivory towers, but you have highly specialized teams that need to come together to perform research and power the industrial applications of tomorrow.” 

The team has brought in UAH’s Office of Technology Commercialization to assist in the process of turning their research into a feasible industrial product. OTC Director Kannan Grant spoke to the Huntsville Business Journal about some of the potential directions that the patent holders may choose to take their technology. 

“They may wish to start their own company, to market it directly, or they could choose to license it. These are academics, experts, not business people, so it will take some time to work this out.” 

The Director suggested that the details should be ironed out within a six-month timeframe; however, he encourages potential investors or partners to seek out the OTC in the meantime.

“Even if they ultimately choose not to invest, speaking with the inventors can give them a better view of the field, and vice versa.” 

Interested parties can contact UAH’s Office of Technology Commercialization at otc@uah.edu. 

Images provided by the University of Alabama in Huntsville.