SAM became the first artificial intelligence in the world to develop a seasonal flu vaccine.
The artificial intelligence seems to have reached a new milestone. As much, it must be recognized, information technology and technologies work closely with the medical sector, and have been for many years. But never before, an AI had been able to fully design a drug for humans. SAM ( Search Algorithm for Ligands ) achieved the feat by finding the formula for a seasonal flu vaccine.
The AI has made its own selection of compounds
Developed by Australian researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, the SAM program has a mission: to develop an effective human medicine. For her to succeed, she obviously had to guide her. This was the role of Professor Nikolai Petrovsky's team, who first taught AI various compounds known to activate the human immune system and a set of ineffective compounds. The AI had to be able to distinguish between a drug that works and one that does not work.
A second algorithm allowed researchers to create billions of imaginary compounds that they then submitted to SAM. Artificial intelligence has been able to review them for a dozen, judged to be sufficiently effective as adjuvants.
SAM has developed an even more effective vaccine than existing ones
What happened after the selection stage? The compounds retained by SAM were synthesized in the laboratory and then tested on human cells. Not only does AI have the ability to recognize effective drugs, but it has also proven its ability to form even more effective drug combinations than existing ones.
After animal testing, it turned out that the vaccine developed " offers very high protection against the flu, and does better than existing vaccines, " confirmed Professor Petrovsky, who is eager to move to the next step.
The next step, precisely, is the test on Man. After these successful experiments, the new vaccine will begin a phase of one-year clinical trials in the United States. Once the tests on the human being validated, it will then be necessary to convince the public opinion, not necessarily ready to trust a drug developed by a computer. And yet, every year, the flu kills between 290,000 and 650,000 people.
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