News Feature

Machine Learning can Help Predict New Uses for Existing Drugs

Machine Learning can Help Predict New Uses for Existing Drugs

In an age of antibiotic resistance and viruses becoming more transmissible, new drugs need to be developed faster than ever. But drug development is a long process: The pipeline from a potential drug candidate to an approved and usable drug can take up to several decades, and diseases are evolving too fast for drug development to keep up. One way scientists aim to make drug development a more efficient process is by repurposing drugs: using currently available drugs to treat different diseases - diseases other than the ones they were first developed to treat.