Machine Learning Empowering Drug Discovery: Applications, Opportunities and Challenges.

Journal: Molecules (Basel, Switzerland)
PMID:

Abstract

Drug discovery plays a critical role in advancing human health by developing new medications and treatments to combat diseases. How to accelerate the pace and reduce the costs of new drug discovery has long been a key concern for the pharmaceutical industry. Fortunately, by leveraging advanced algorithms, computational power and biological big data, artificial intelligence (AI) technology, especially machine learning (ML), holds the promise of making the hunt for new drugs more efficient. Recently, the Transformer-based models that have achieved revolutionary breakthroughs in natural language processing have sparked a new era of their applications in drug discovery. Herein, we introduce the latest applications of ML in drug discovery, highlight the potential of advanced Transformer-based ML models, and discuss the future prospects and challenges in the field.

Authors

  • Xin Qi
  • Yuanchun Zhao
    School of Chemistry and Life Sciences, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou 215011, China.
  • Zhuang Qi
    School of Software, Shandong University, Jinan 250101, China.
  • Siyu Hou
    MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, TCM-X Centre/Bioinformatics Division, BNRIST, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China.
  • Jiajia Chen
    Zhongshan Hospital Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361004, China.