AI tool capable of predicting drugs side effects

Stanford researchers have developed an AI tool called Decagon that identifies how pharmaceuticals affect proteins in the human body. It is capable of identifying patterns and predicting how two drugs will interact with eachother from analysis of over 4 million known associations between drugs and side effects. At the moment it is analysing what side effects might be prevalent in two drugs but the intention is to extend this to multiple combinations in time.
Marinka Zitnik, a postdoctoral fellow in computer science at Stanford, said: “It’s practically impossible to test a new drug in combination with all other drugs, because just for one drug that would be five thousand new experiments. With some new drug combinations, truly we don’t know what will happen.”
Jure Leskovec, an associate professor of computer science at Stanford, said: “It was surprising that protein interaction networks reveal so much about drug side effects. Today, drug side effects are discovered essentially by accident, and our approach has the potential to lead to more effective and safer healthcare