Friday, August 25, 2017

Advances in AI for drug discovery to be presented at the AI Pharma Innovation Summit 2017 in Boston

Wednesday, June 21, 2017, Baltimore, MD - Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based artificial intelligence company focused on drug discovery, biomarker development and aging research will present new research on applying deep learning approaches to drug discovery at the inaugural AI Pharma Innovation Summit in Boston, July 25-27. The CEO of Insilico Medicine, Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD will present new research and moderate the workshop titled "A Fundamental Guide to the Application of AI in Drug Discovery to Uncover the Next Wave of Successful Future Candidates" 15:00-17.30 on July 25th. The conference website is http://www.ai-pharma.com and early bird registration deadline is June 23rd.
"Artificial intelligence holds enormous potential for pharmaceutical R&D. In fact, mastering AI will become a key competitive advantage for pharmaceutical companies, possibly a key survival factor versus more innovative and faster moving new entrants into the biomedical space. However, the hype surrounding AI, unprecedented investments by venture capitalists and lack of industry experts and analysts are creating a bubble reminiscent of the Dot Com era. Many companies are rebranding basic computational approaches as AI to get funding and contracts. Understanding the underlying principles and various flavours of AI and what the various elements of the AI toolbox can do for the various steps of the early R&D, clinical trials and marketing process is essential for every CEO and board member of every major pharmaceutical company", said Ulrich Muehlner, PhD, former director and head of corporate strategy of Novartis, CEO of GrowthCube Partners and advisor to Insilico Medicine.
The conference will bring together some of the most prominent thought leaders in artificial intelligence for the pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical industry executives, regulators and academics. It will feature speakers from Pfizer, Sanofi and Novartis with the Global CIO of Novartis, Remy Evard and VP and Global Head of Digital Business, Jeremy Sohn leading a session called "Discover: Accelerating the Integration of AI in into Pharmaceutical DNA". 
"Artificial Intelligence is transforming many industries including transportation, finance and security. This will undoubtedly impact the pharmaceutical industry which will experience dramatic change over the next five years. AI will impact every process from early screening and preclinical validation to clinical trials execution, marketing, sales and general management. To adapt to this rapid pace of innovation pharma needs to adapt to the new world order and embrace AI as the source of competitive advantage and shareholder value creation", said Declan Doogan, MD, DSc, former senior vice-president and head of worldwide development at Pfizer and Chairman and co-founder of Biohaven Pharmaceuticals."
In order to facilitate this fundamental shift in the biopharma R&D model, Insilico Medicine will launch in July an executive training program codenamed "the Pharmaceutical Artificial Intelligence Strategy Executive Coach". The program is geared towards the senior company executives and board members of large biopharmaceutical corporations and international government regulatory bodies in partnership with the several prominent hardware vendors and consulting companies. 
"Artificial intelligence holds enormous potential for pharmaceutical R&D. In fact, mastering AI will The interactive workshop at the AI Pharma Innovation Summit will delve deeper into the multiple applications of AI algorithms in drug design and discovery: with major investments at stake later down the R&D pipeline, it is essential that only the best candidates are identified to progress through the pre-clinical and clinical landscapes. Immerse yourself in discussions on the following topics: 
  • Supporting discovery using AI
  • Training neural networks to predict molecular structures
  • Improving the scaling of drug discovery efforts by utilizing AI technology
  • Discussing the application of AI for target and compound selection
  • Predictive analytics for drug discovery target validation
  • Discussing sophisticated predictive machine learning methods to improve the speed and efficiency of drug discovery process
  • Developing computational AI methods for screening
  • Harnessing AI platforms to correlate label drug use and medical events to identify suitable molecules for drug repurposing
###
About Insilico Medicine, Inc
Insilico Medicine, Inc. is an artificial intelligence company located at the Emerging Technology Centers at the Johns Hopkins University Eastern campus in Baltimore with R&D resources in Belgium, Russia, and the UK hiring talent through hackathons and competitions. It utilizes advances in genomics, big data analysis and deep learning for in silico drug discovery and drug repurposing for aging and age-related diseases. The company pursues internal drug discovery programs in cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS, diabetes, sarcopenia and geroprotector discovery. Through its Pharma.AI division, the company provides advanced machine learning services to biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and skin care companies. In 2017 NVIDIA selected Insilico as the top 5 AI companies for social impact. 
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Artificial intelligence and blockchain companies partner to advance healthcare research

The Bitfury Group and Insilico Medicine partner to develop AI healthcare Blockchain solutions

 Tuesday, 15th of August, 2017, Baltimore, MD - Insilico Medicine, Inc, a Baltimore-based next-generation artificial intelligence company today announced a research collaboration with The Bitfury Group, the world's leading full-service blockchain technology conglomerate, to develop novel solutions for healthcare applications. The companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate in the academic and commercial settings to develop AI on Blockchain solutions for the healthcare industry.
"Blockchain can secure and streamline our medical systems, while AI has the potential to revitalize data management and machine learning to help identify trends and diseases," said Valery Vavilov, founder and CEO of The Bitfury Group. "By partnering with Insilico, we will be able to combine their expertise in deep learning and bioinformatics with our Blockchain proficiency and real-time solutions to create bespoke and innovative new products for the healthcare sector."
"The Bitfury Group is one of the most reputable companies in Blockchain developing their own semiconductors and end-to-end Blockchain solutions trusted by the major corporations and governments worldwide. We are happy to enter into a research collaboration with Bitfury to develop innovative solutions that may save lives and extend human healthspan", said Alex Zhavoroknov, PhD, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc. 
Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence
Recent advances in AI have surpassed human accuracy in image and voice recognition and are transforming multiple industries, including manufacturing, transportation, finance and entertainment. However, the use of AI in the healthcare industry has been comparatively slower than in other sectors, as deep learning systems need a large number of examples to learn from and can require up to tens of millions of data sets to achieve a high level of accuracy. 
Next-generation AI developed by Insilico Medicine can be used to validate, assess and improve the quality of biological samples as well as learn using large volumes of heterogeneous data without human intervention. Multiple new methodologies including the feature importance, deep feature selection and deep pathway analysis among the others can provide the biologically-relevant interpretation of the inner workings of the AI systems. 
Blockchain has the potential to track and validate large amounts of healthcare data in a secure and efficient ways opening the door to the necessary solutions to effectively organize data for deep learning systems. The Bitfury and Insilico Medicine partnership will explore the ways Blockchain can be used to accelerate progress in biomedicine and deliver innovative healthcare solutions to people around the world. 
Insilico Medicine is developing "next-generation AI" with the focus on deep generative adversarial networks (GANs), Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Meta Learning for drug discovery, biomarker development, cross-species analysis and aging research. It recently published on the applications of GANs to discovery of novel molecules in Oncotarget and Molecular Pharmaceutics. Another paper published in Molecular Pharmaceutics in 2016, demonstrated the proof of concept of the application of deep neural networks for predicting the therapeutic class of the molecule using the transcriptional response data, received the American Chemical Society Editors' Choice Award. 
###
About The Bitfury Group
The Bitfury Group is the leading full service Blockchain technology company and one of the largest private infrastructure providers in the Blockchain ecosystem. The Bitfury Group develops and delivers both the software and the hardware solutions necessary for businesses, governments, organizations and individuals to securely move an asset across the Blockchain. The expertise of The Bitfury Group ensures successful, easy, fast, secure and cost effective connectivity to the Blockchain. The Bitfury Group is a global team of experts in technology, business, communications, security and civil society. The Bitfury Group believes the Blockchain can and will open new doors for global economic opportunity and prosperity, and its mission is to create and advance Blockchain applications that will further promote innovation and the advancement of the peer-to peer economy. Visit bitfury.com for more information
About Insilico Medicine, Inc
Insilico Medicine, Inc. is the next-generation artificial intelligence company located at the Emerging Technology Centers at the Johns Hopkins University Eastern campus in Baltimore with R&D resources in Belgium, Russia, and the UK, hiring talent through hackathons and competitions. It develops novel AI solutions for drug discovery, biomarker development and aging research. The company pursues internal drug discovery programs in cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS, metabolic diseases, sarcopenia and senescence. Through its Pharma.AI division, the company provides advanced machine learning services to biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and skin care companies. In 2017, NVIDIA selected Insilico Medicine as one of the Top 5 AI companies in its potential for social impact. Brief company video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l62jlwgL3v8
For more information please contact:

Qingsong Zhu, PhD 
zhu@insilicomedicine.com
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Artificial intelligence for human age-reversal

Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Copenhagen today announced a research collaboration with a company specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) to develop solutions for preventing early aging. The aim of this partnership is to develop medicines to prevent and cure a broad range of diseases associated with aging such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cardiovascular diseases.
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cardiovascular diseases are strongly associated with aging and share many characteristics on the molecular level. Experts in the genetics of aging at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine partnered with the Baltimore-based company, Insilico Medicine, specializing in AI to find molecules that can be developed into drugs to cure and prevent these diseases. The objective of this collaboration is to increase health span for everyone on the planet. "Many of the diseases of aging are associated with the failure of the DNA repair mechanisms. The aging processes accelerate as the DNA repair mechanisms lose function. The collaboration with Insilico Medicine will allow us to find the molecules that repair DNA and prevent accelerated aging", said the head of the biology of aging lab and assistant professor Morten Scheibye-Knudsen, Center for Healthy Aging. 
Extended Lifespan for All
Insilico Medicine develops the advanced AI algorithms to study the aging processes and discover new interventions in aging. Many of these molecules aim to induce the expression of certain genes involved in the endogenous repair processes to slow down and even reverse some of the aging-associated diseases. By applying a specific branch of artificial intelligence called Deep Learning (DL) on multi-modal data, the company aims to discover molecules that can stimulate the repair of the DNA. 
"Deep learning systems are outperforming human abilities in many tasks including image recognition and autonomous driving. But one area, where AI will have the most impact is drug discovery and we are deeply honored to be able to partner with professor Scheibye-Knudsen's group at the University of Copenhagen, which is one of the most advanced in the world. I hope that together we will be able to find new molecules to extend healthy longevity and make humans more resistant to the various stress factors", said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc.
At the advanced laboratories in Copenhagen, the research teams will be able to test the molecules identified using the artificial intelligence methods to select the most effective ones for joint development into novel medicines. 
"We hope that cooperation can lead to the development of some new drugs that can prevent early aging, thus ensuring increased health spans for everyone. If we can find molecules that repair our DNA, it is not inconceivable that we can increase the upper limit to how old we may be, "says Morten Scheibye-Knudsen.
Insilico Medicine was the first company to apply deep generative adversarial networks (GANs) to generation of new molecular structures with specified parameters and published a seminal papers in Oncotarget and Molecular Pharmaceutics. Another paper published in Molecular Pharmaceutics in 2016, demonstrated the proof of concept of the application of deep neural networks for predicting the therapeutic class of the molecule using the transcriptional response data, received the American Chemical Society Editors' Choice Award.
The pharmaceutical industry is expected to benefit from the recent advances in AI. Insilico Medicine was profiled in the recent article in Nature Biotechnologytitled "AI-powered drug discovery captures pharma interest" among the other companies utilizing machine learning for drug discovery. The agreement with Juvenescence is expected to set a precedent for the new molecules discovered using the new generation of artificial intelligence by a team of expert drug developers.
###
About Insilico Medicine, Inc
Insilico Medicine, Inc. is an artificial intelligence company located at the Emerging Technology Centers at the Johns Hopkins University Eastern campus in Baltimore, with R&D resources in Belgium, Russia, and the UK sourced through hackathons and competitions. The company utilises advances in genomics, big data analysis, and deep learning for in silico drug discovery and drug repurposing for ageing and age-related diseases. The company is pursuing internal drug discovery programs in cancer, Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, ALS, diabetes, sarcopenia, and ageing. Through its Pharma.AI division, Insilico provides advanced machine learning services to biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and skin care companies, foundations and national governments globally. In 2017, NVIDIA selected Insilico Medicine as one of the Top 5 AI companies in its potential for social impact.
About the Scheibye-Knudsen Laboratory
The growing proportion of the elderly population represents an increasing socioeconomic challenge, not least because of age-associated diseases. It is therefore increasingly pertinent to find interventions for age-associated diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cardiovascular diseases. Although the cause of aging is currently unknown accumulation of damage to our genome, the DNA, may be a contributing factor.
In the Scheibye-Knudsen lab we try to understand the cellular and organismal consequences of DNA damage with the aim of developing interventions. We have discovered that DNA damage leads to changes in certain metabolites and that replenishment of these molecules may alter the rate of aging in model organisms. These findings suggest that normal aging and age-associated diseases may be malleable to similar interventions. The hope is to develop interventions that will allow everyone to live healthier, happier and more productive lives.
Laboratory website: http://scheibye-knudsen.com/
About the University of Copenhagen 
With over 40,000 students and more than 9,000 employees, the University of Copenhagen is the largest institution of research and education in Denmark and among the highest ranked universities in Europe. The purpose of the University - to quote the University Statute - is to 'conduct research and provide further education to the highest academic level'. Approximately one hundred different institutes, departments, laboratories, centres, museums, etc., form the nucleus of the University.
Contact: 
Insilico Medicine 
Dr. Qingsong Zhu 
zhu@insilicomedicine.com

University of Copenhagen 
Dr. Morten Scheibye-Knudsen 
mscheibye@sund.ku.dk
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)