A new $6 million research initiative is bringing together Indiana University experts to develop artificial intelligence tools to accelerate the search for new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
The five-year project brings together researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Indiana University Rudy School of Informatics and Computing Engineering. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the partnership aims to harness the power of AI and machine learning to identify promising drug candidates.
Researchers hope the technology will help overcome one of the biggest hurdles in drug development by allowing human researchers to analyze large numbers of potential compounds that would take years to evaluate manually.
Explore new possibilities using AI
This project combines advanced computing techniques with traditional chemical and medical research methods. Scientists plan to use artificial intelligence to explore new chemical structures that can interact with proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
According to project leader Yijie Wang, an associate professor at the Rudis School, this technology has the potential to change the way researchers approach drug discovery.
This project combines advanced computing techniques with traditional chemical and medical research methods.
“Traditional drug discovery methods cannot efficiently explore the vast chemical space currently available to researchers,” Wang said. “Our goal is to develop AI-driven tools that can screen billions of compounds and prioritize those that are most likely to interact with disease-relevant targets and reach the brain.”
This effort will run in parallel with the Indiana University School of Medicine-led TREAT-AD program. The program also focuses on identifying new drug targets for Alzheimer’s disease.
Tackling complex diseases
The chemistry portion of the project will be led by Dr. Brent Clayton, associate research professor of medicine and medicinal chemistry core leader for the TREAT-AD program.
“Alzheimer’s disease is complex, and scientific debate is still ongoing about which disease mechanisms are most important at different stages,” Creighton said. “That makes choosing the right cellular targets especially difficult. In many areas of medicine, we can focus on simply killing harmful cells or completely stopping a particular process, but in neurodegenerative diseases, the goal is often to restore a delicate biological balance without biasing pathways in either direction.”
Looking forward to future treatments
Although several medications are available to help manage Alzheimer’s disease symptoms, there are currently no approved treatments that can stop the underlying disease progression.
Researchers believe that artificial intelligence could help close that gap by identifying more effective drug candidates and reducing the time needed for early-stage discovery.
Researchers believe artificial intelligence could help fill that gap by identifying more effective drug candidates
“Despite these obstacles, this work has great rewards,” Clayton said. “Alzheimer’s disease affects millions of patients, families, and caregivers, and I am thrilled to be part of a team at a top research university tackling this challenge.”
With millions of people around the world living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, researchers hope new AI-powered approaches will help develop the next generation of treatments.
