Enabling faster drug discovery through machine learning

In this project, we will assess and extend state-of-the-art artificial intelligence algorithms to help discover new drug molecules. The development of new pharmaceuticals is an enormously difficult and costly task. Even a modest acceleration in the process would equate to medicines reaching patients more quickly and savings of many millions of pounds. It is a challenging problem because there are an astronomical number of possible chemical compounds and it is difficult to figure out which ones to make and test. The springboard for the project is a unique collaboration between the University of Nottingham and the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which is synthesizing and testing new molecules for effectiveness as a potential treatment for a complex and chronic lung disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).