All articles tagged with #drug discovery
QDX's Extreme-scale Electronic Structure System (EXESS) can run large-molecule quantum chemistry calculations thousands of times faster on conventional hardware by fragmentation and parallelization, enabling drug discovery and materials research to move from weeks or months to minutes, with free access for approved research projects.
Researchers identified two brain receptors (SST1 and SST4) that regulate neprilysin, the enzyme that degrades amyloid beta. Activating both receptors in mice raised neprilysin levels, reduced amyloid buildup, and improved memory-related behavior, suggesting a potential for safe, affordable oral Alzheimer’s treatments that enhance the brain’s own plaque-cleaning system; however, findings are preclinical and require human studies.
An open-source AI named MOSAIC clusters about one million patent reactions and trains thousands of specialist models to predict reaction conditions and draft complete, executable lab procedures, enabling researchers to synthesize 35 novel compounds with potential pharmaceutical, agrochemical, or cosmetic uses without further data trawling.
UCLA researchers overturned Bredt's rule by creating cage-shaped cubene and quadricyclene with highly distorted double bonds, revealing bond orders around 1.5 and expanding 3D-molecule building blocks for future drug design.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar floated a value-sharing model at Davos, suggesting OpenAI could license discoveries made with its technology or take a stake in the profits from AI-enabled breakthroughs (such as new drugs), signaling a potential shift toward revenue sharing as it pursues new income beyond subscriptions.
UC Davis researchers developed a light-driven method that combines amino acids with tryptamine and, after UV exposure, reshapes them into new molecules that activate the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor and may offer psychedelic-like brain benefits without altering perception. In mice, the leading compound fully activated 5-HT2A but did not induce hallucinogenic behaviors (head-twitch responses), leading researchers to pursue further studies on how other serotonin receptors might modulate or suppress perceptual effects.
Illumina unveiled the Billion Cell Atlas, a massive dataset mapping how gene perturbations affect 200 cell lines to accelerate drug discovery via AI-powered models and virtual cells; with about 150 million cells generated so far and a goal of a billion by year-end, the company has signed on Merck, AstraZeneca, and Eli Lilly as initial customers.
The former head of Pfizer R&D expresses concern about the future of the biopharma industry, highlighting past optimism about a productivity surge driven by genomic advances and new drug modalities, but implying that these expectations may not have been realized as hoped.
MIT researchers have developed a groundbreaking 3D human brain model called miBrains that integrates all major brain cell types, enabling more accurate disease research and drug testing, with potential for personalized medicine and Alzheimer’s disease insights.
Researchers identified thiorphan as a promising drug to promote neural regeneration and functional recovery after spinal cord injury by using a bioinformatics-driven pipeline, in vitro and in vivo testing, and validation in primate and human neurons, showing its potential for clinical translation.
Eli Lilly is collaborating with Nvidia to build an AI-powered supercomputer aimed at accelerating drug discovery and development, enabling faster testing of potential medicines and expanding research capabilities through proprietary AI models accessible via Lilly's federated platform, Lilly TuneLab.
Eli Lilly and Nvidia are collaborating to build the pharmaceutical industry's most powerful supercomputer and AI factory to accelerate drug discovery and development, aiming to significantly reduce the time and costs associated with bringing new medicines to market, with full deployment expected by January 2026.
An AI model called DrugReflector, trained on gene expression data, significantly accelerates drug discovery by more effectively identifying promising compounds, doubling success rates when iteratively refined, and offering a powerful new tool for developing therapies.
The article discusses the nuanced debate between traditional animal models and new approach methodologies (NAMs) in biomedical research, emphasizing that both have their strengths and limitations. It advocates for a balanced, model-specific approach rather than outright replacing animal testing with NAMs, highlighting technological advances and ethical considerations.
Scientists from Queen Mary University of London have discovered that the drug Rapalink-1 extends the lifespan of yeast cells by targeting the TORC1 pathway, and this process involves increased production of enzymes that convert gut bacteria-produced agmatine into chemicals linked to aging, offering insights that could inform human aging and health.