Aussie biotech and UNSW forge partnership to transform drug discovery with AI

Biotech News: An Australian biotech company has inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the University of New South Wales (UNSW), aimed at enhancing pharmaceutical research through the integration of artificial intelligence (AI).

Under the newly forged MOU, Algorae Pharmaceuticals, formerly known as LCT Global, and UNSW are on the cusp of finalising a comprehensive master services agreement that will lay the foundation for the development of a cutting-edge AI pharmaceutical discovery and development platform, aptly named AlgoraeOS, with ‘OS’ signifying ‘operating system’. This pioneering platform will harness the power of the latest machine-learning and AI methodologies to extract invaluable insights from vast repositories of molecular, clinical, and other diverse datasets.

The primary goal of AlgoraeOS is twofold: to enhance the efficiency of Algorae’s ongoing projects and to unearth novel drug candidates that could transform the pharmaceutical landscape.

At the heart of this ambitious endeavor is the collaboration between Algorae and the UNSW Data Science Hub, commonly referred to as ‘uDASH,’ where experts have already developed an AI model tailored for pharmaceutical prediction. Algorae intends to leverage the existing expertise within uDASH to refine this model to suit its unique requirements.

Central to this partnership is uDASH’s state-of-the-art infrastructure and the unparalleled computing power housed within the hub, including the fastest supercomputers in Australia. These formidable resources are poised to be instrumental in executing AI algorithms on vast datasets that encompass a myriad of information.

Leading the charge in this visionary project is the esteemed Associate Professor Fatemeh Vafaee, serving as the Deputy Director of uDASH. With a doctorate in artificial intelligence from the prestigious School of Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Chicago, she has established herself as a trailblazer in the field.

In 2017, Dr Vafaee founded and currently heads the AI-enhanced Biomedicine Laboratory at UNSW, a dynamic hub dedicated to applying advanced AI techniques to address complex biomedical challenges. Her multidisciplinary team has notched remarkable achievements in developing advanced machine-learning methods and deep-learning models.

The potential implications of this collaboration are significant. AI’s ability to process, analyse, and predict outcomes from extensive datasets holds the promise of catalysing drug development, reducing costs, and ultimately delivering more effective and personalised treatments to patients. As AI technologies continue to gain traction and evolve, the pharmaceutical industry is poised for a transformative journey, ushering in an era of innovation and improved healthcare outcomes.

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