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AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

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Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#81

Post by whatever1 »

plaidfuji wrote: post #54

> “…the focus of AI in drug discovery must shift from doing what can be done - such as modelling data that is readily available, but that is unlikely to move the needle - to doing what should be done, even if this requires, for example, substantial data generation…” It’s a worthy goal, but I think that many involved in this work might be thinking, even unconsciously, “You first”. This is the problem with AI for all o…

It was always easy to come up with new molecules/drugs/materials. The thing that changed is the scale that it can happen with the new ml-based approaches.

What hasn’t changed is finding ones that are manufacturable/synthesizable.

Even if you find 1 million new stable molecules, there no guarantee that even one of them is manufacturable.

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#82

Post by murphyslab »

joe_the_user wrote: post #44
murphyslab wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Derek Lowe as a science communicator, and others like him, is sorely needed to understand the real meaning and significance of the study and others. I say that as someone with a PhD in chemistry who's been to plenty of presentations on drug discovery topics. It's difficult to calibrate statements made by other scientists unless you're well embedded within a field: Is this someone whose opinions matter? Are they the s…

Not that I'm a Derek Lowe fanboy or anything but the entirety of your comment is like "that guy needs to check himself" without, like, any specific context, any specific argument he's wrong on this specific question or like anything. It's like "deciphering questions around credibility" is hard ... all the way down. Where's yours? What are you saying?

My apologies for the lack of clarity in my prior comment; it was composed in haste. To be clear, I am a bit of a Derek Lowe fanboy. I value the work that he does in offering insight on his areas of expertise to the public at large because he has both the necessary understanding and the ability to communicate clearly. Few people have his level of background knowledge alongside the capacity to wade into the depths of pharmaceutical chemistry and then communicate that information and his personal perspective to enrich the commons.

What I was getting at with the issue of credibility is that I (or most others) would have time determining if a particular scholarly author in pharma is a good person to listen to on the subject. But having evidence that Derek Lowe is an honest broker of information in that domain, given his long history of commentary as well as other chemists I know who eagerly read his commentary, I'm willing to defer to his assessment.

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#83

Post by murphyslab »

AnodicElegy wrote: post #39
tim333 wrote: post #30

Derek Lowe discusion of the paper https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/so-how-ai-drug-dis... I think that was originally linked but got changed to the £30 to Elsevier version for some reason.

OP here: the title of the thread still links to Derek Lowe's blog post, but the article discussed in the blog post was added to the body of the original post (not by me).

NB: The post was updated twice. The first changed the link to the Nature Reviews Drug Discovery article; the second changed it back to Derek Lowe's blog post with the NRDD article in the body.

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#84

Post by Scoundreller »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #28
xX_Hacker_Xx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a AI designed drug for hair loss that i know of. its slow-release oral minoxidil formulation called MINX. AI helped with the formulation [1]. its in in similar category as VDPHL01. Hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars has been invested into Veradermics, and their main product is VDPHL01 (also an extended-release oral formulation). [1] https://x.com/anagenxyz/status/2071601868841595082

I’m on 0.5 to 1mg oral minoxidil daily for a few years now and it’s working great. Blood pressure benefits too.

> Blood pressure benefits too.

Speak for yourself, if mine goes any lower I’m going to pass out

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#85

Post by snapetom »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #35
snapetom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks. Social media needs less hero worship. Just RSS whoever you like.

I agree. I won't do heroes. Ever. A National Treasure, on the other hand - they enrich life without being a vector for tribalism (eg:Michael Kramer/Kate Reading).

Stop calling them "National Treasures." That's hero worshipping. That's just sad.

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#86

Post by tim333 »

As to

>clinically relevant impact is, so far, disappointingly limited

it could be that the AI tools have to get to some threshold before they are very useful? Like with the Economist talking to Hassabis:

>AlphaFold itself took six years of work to predict its first protein structure, and then one year to follow up with what he describes as the structures of “all 200m proteins known to science”. He hopes a similar speedup will happen inside Isomorphic.

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#87

Post by atombender »

murphyslab wrote: post #34
tim333 wrote: post #30

Derek Lowe discusion of the paper https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/so-how-ai-drug-dis... I think that was originally linked but got changed to the £30 to Elsevier version for some reason.

Derek Lowe as a science communicator, and others like him, is sorely needed to understand the real meaning and significance of the study and others. I say that as someone with a PhD in chemistry who's been to plenty of presentations on drug discovery topics. It's difficult to calibrate statements made by other scientists unless you're well embedded within a field: Is this someone whose opinions matter? Are they the s…

The world needs more communicators like Derek Lowe who can give a clear-eyed, de-bullshittified perspective on the world, while also being great writers who are a pleasure to read. I follow his blog, and while a lot of it goes over my head (or seems very niche), a lot is great. The only other such writers I know about is Matt Levine at Bloomberg, and Atul Gawande (who's a bit less blunt, perhaps). And of course the late Carl Sagan. Any others?

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#88

Post by defrost »

atombender wrote: post #87
murphyslab wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Derek Lowe as a science communicator, and others like him, is sorely needed to understand the real meaning and significance of the study and others. I say that as someone with a PhD in chemistry who's been to plenty of presentations on drug discovery topics. It's difficult to calibrate statements made by other scientists unless you're well embedded within a field: Is this someone whose opinions matter? Are they the s…

The world needs more communicators like Derek Lowe who can give a clear-eyed, de-bullshittified perspective on the world, while also being great writers who are a pleasure to read. I follow his blog, and while a lot of it goes over my head (or seems very niche), a lot is great. The only other such writers I know about is Matt Levine at Bloomberg, and Atul Gawande (who's a bit less blunt, perhaps). And of course the l…

Professor Heather Cox Richardson (US History) has a blunt near daily summary with frequent call backs to significant high and low points of the past two and a half centuries:

eg: August 15, 2026 - https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-15-2026

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Cox_Richardson

Re: AI in drug discovery – what it is, where we stand and the path forward

#90

Post by marstall »

arionhardison wrote: post #48

I think the real win here is for idiots like me: A) no education B) no resources C) not smart enough to be a self-taught bio-hacker Everyone hears "AI is going to cure disease" and pictures some cure-all pill from a bio lab which is what I feel this paper is hinting at is missingb but that's the top of the funnel; I'm at the bottom where patients live and that is where AI is already quietly working. Its just not bein…

cool. i like what you've done here with a virtual panel that can answer questions ... i have similar ideas for kabuki syndrome (currently: https://www.thekabukipapers.org). talk? marstall at gmail.
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