AI platform says Olumiant could be repurposed for Alzheimer’s
AI platform says Olumiant could be repurposed for Alzheimer’s
With so many novel drug candidates for Alzheimer’s disease failing in clinical development, researchers in the US have started using artificial intelligence (AI) to screen already-approved therapies for activity against the neurodegenerative disorder.
A team based at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School has come up with an AI algorithm – called DRIAD (Drug Repurposing In Alzheimer’s Disease) – that it hopes will not only find treatments but also tease out new therapeutic targets.
The AI uses machine learning to measure what happens to human brain neural cells when treated with a drug, and could be “a more rapid and less expensive option” than clinical trials of novel therapeutics, according to the researchers.
In the journal Nature Communications, Harvard informatics specialist Artem Sokolov and colleagues report that early studies with the platform based on 80 approved drugs suggest Eli Lilly’s Olumiant (baricitinib) as a possible candidate for repurposing as an AD therapy.
It’s not the first time that AI has suggested a new role for Olumiant, which is approved as an arthritis drug. Last year, UK drug discovery specialist BenevolentAI used a machine learning platform to identify the JAK inhibitor as a possible candidate for COVID-19, and Lilly has now started phase 3 trials investigating this use.
“Unfortunately, even for previously approved drugs, clinical trials require substantial resources, making it impossible to evaluate every drug in patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” says Sokolov. “We therefore built a framework for prioritising drugs, helping clinical studies to focus on the most promising ones.”
The method examines whether the changes induced by a drug correlate with molecular markers of disease severity in Alzheimer’s, and revealed those that had protective as well as damaging effects on brain cells.
It also allows researchers to examine which proteins are targeted by the most promising drugs and if there are common trends among the targets.
Olumiant was the most promising out of a clutch of JAK inhibitors identified by DRIAD, which ties in with research suggesting that there may be an inflammatory component in the pathology of Alzheimer’s.
Trials of anti-inflammatory drugs have been carried out since the 1990s – mainly nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin, naproxen and ibuprofen – but had limited success. So far none have been recommended for either prevention or treatment of the disease.
Attention has since turned to other pathologies like amyloid plaque and tau fibril aggregation in the brain, again with little success and billions of dollars invested, although Biogen’s amyloid-targeting candidate aducanumab has a chance of getting FDA approval this year.
Armed with the new results, Olumiant will be tested in a clinical trial for patients with “subjective cognitive complaints, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s”, according to a Mass General press release.
Published at Wed, 10 Mar 2021 09:45:00 +0000
Protecting and managing forests with the help of artificial intelligence
Forests in Germany and around the globe are suffering from climate change and the resulting drought, heat and pest infestation. Germany is currently experiencing the largest forest die-off since the 1980s, and in Baden-Württemberg alone, 43 percent of all forest areas have already been damaged. All of this poses major challenges for foresters and those responsible for forest management. They will now get help from a joint project of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT); one of its spin-offs, EDI GmbH; the South German Climate Office; and the KIT Institute of Geography and Geoecology.
According to the scientists, research findings could help to counteract the effects of climate change and make forest ecosystems more resilient through targeted measures: “Mixed forests with hornbeam, maple, or wild cherry can cope better with the new conditions than spruce forests, for example – although they are less productive. In plantations, soil conditions also play an important role,” says climate researcher Dr. Joachim Fallmann from the South German Climate Office at KIT. “Forest management must now react while making complex trade-offs in the process.”
Intelligent assistance system for forest management
That is why the researchers, together with partners from forestry and forest science, are developing the EDE 4.0 Erweiterte Dynamische Einschlagsplanung (Expanded Dynamic Felling Planning) assistance system. It is designed to help foresters use artificial intelligence to conserve forests and manage them sustainably. With the help of this cloud-based decision support system that uses AI, foresters could make the optimal decision in each case based on data to enable sustainable forest management.
The EDI hive IoT framework uses a software solution from EDI GmbH that the founders are already using to apply machine learning in the aerospace and mechanical engineering industries. “The final product of the development will be a mobile app that can be used intuitively that supports foresters on site in their work in the forest with AI. For example, it will help them decide where to harvest or when to replant, including the chances of success of a planting at a defined location,” says Dr. Thomas Freudenmann, one of the co-founders of EDI GmbH.
But for the system to deliver relevant results, he says, it first must recognize correlations and patterns. To achieve this, a great deal of data from very different areas is combined. This includes, for example, data on medium-term climate development provided by the German Weather Service and the KIT Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research. In addition, specific forestry data from the KIT Institute of Geography and Geoecology are processed. Finally, information on the market environment is provided by the forestry industry. Last but not least, the assistance system takes into account the knowledge of the foresters from the local forest district, the researchers emphasize.
Associated partners and sponsors
The EDE4.0 project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The project executing agency is the Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V. (Agency for Renewable Resources). Associated partners are the Ministry of Rural Areas and Consumer Protection Baden-Württemberg, the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg, the Rottenburg University of Applied Forest Sciences and the City of Karlsruhe.
The EDE 4.0 project is the topic of the third episode of the interactive video series “Sachen machen mit KI”.
Link to the video: https://www.sek.kit.edu/video/ede40/
More articles on the topic of forests can be found here
Published at Wed, 10 Mar 2021 08:02:37 +0000
