UK researchers use AI to find existing drugs that treat neurological diseases
Scientists at the UK Dementia Research Institute in Edinburgh are using artificial intelligence to identify existing medications that could treat conditions like motor neurone disease (MND). The team analyzes patient data including voice recordings and eye scans to spot drugs already approved for other uses that might work against brain disorders.
The approach addresses a real gap in neurology. Medications already on the market may be effective for neurological conditions without anyone knowing it yet.
Steve Barrett, who has lived with MND for 10 years, is participating in the research. He described the disease plainly: "It strips you of who you are. It rips any sense of future that you may feel that you had planned for yourself."
For Barrett, the research matters because it targets specific outcomes. "It's taking a tablet with the intention of delivering outcomes, that may or may not help me but help others," he said.
How the screening works
Researchers test candidate drugs across multiple batches using robots, conventional medical equipment, and computer algorithms trained to identify promising candidates. Drugs the AI flags as potentially effective then move into clinical trials with patients.
Prof Siddarthan Chandran, chief executive of the institute, said the brain's complexity has historically limited what researchers could study. "The brain is the most complicated organ in the body," he told the BBC. "A combination of AI and new technologies mean we can now do things which would have been unbelievable when I was at medical school."
Timeline for treatments
Standard drug development takes 10 years or longer from discovery to market approval. Chandran's team believes this approach could accelerate availability of treatments for neurological conditions.
Chandran said the field is at "the tipping point of change" in neurological research. This isn't the first time researchers have mined medical data with AI, but the scale and speed of analysis is now different.
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