An Artificial Intelligence (AI) model which will identify chemical compounds that helps healthy aging has been built a team of chemists from the University of Surrey, in a move that would pave way for further pharmaceutical innovations with the mandate to extend a person’s life span.
The team in a paper published by Nature Communication’s Scientific Reports, built a machine learning model that would take data from the Drug Age database to know if a compound can actually extend the life of a translucent worm, ‘Caenorhabditis elegans’, which shares metabolism that is similar to that of humans. The shorter lifespan of the worms will afford the researchers the leverage to know the impact of the chemical compounds.
Three compounds that have an 80 percent capacity of elegans lifespan increment were singled out through artificial intelligence, they are:
flavonoids (anti-oxidant pigments found in plants that promote cardiovascular health),
fatty acids (such as omega 3), and
Organooxygens (compounds that contain carbon to oxygen bonds, such as alcohol).
“Ageing is increasingly being recognized as a set of diseases in modern medicine, and we can apply the tools of the digital world, such as AI, to help slow down or protect against aging and age-related diseases. Our study demonstrates the revolutionary ability of AI to aid the identification of compounds with anti-aging properties.” Says Sofia Kapsiani, a co-author of the study, who is also a final year undergraduate student at the University of Surrey.
The lead author of the study and Senior Lecturer in Computational Chemistry at the University of Surrey, Dr. Brendan Howlin was emphatic when he declared:
“This research shows the power and potential of AI, which is a specialty of the University of Surrey, to drive significant benefits in human health.”
This new development is a coup in the field of medical and pharmaceutical science that has the tendency to make humans live like vampires ( aging slowly) and also bring significant human health benefits.
Reference: “Random forest classification for predicting lifespan-extending chemical compounds” by Sofia Kapsiani and Brendan J. Howlin, 5 July 2021, Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-93070-6
Ayoola Faseyi, an Abuja based Journalist with interest in Technology and Politics. He is a versatile writer with articles in many renowned News Journals.
He is the Co-Founder of media brand, The Vent Republic.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
