- Machine learning can speed up drug discovery and reduce costs.
- Senolytics are drugs that slow down aging and prevent age-related diseases.
- Aging cells secrete inflammatory proteins that can cause disease.
- Eliminating senescent cells may ease the course of diseases including diabetes, COVID, pulmonary fibrosis and cancer.
- About 80 senolytics are known, but only two have been tested in humans.
- Machine learning models can identify new candidate senolytic drugs.
- The best AI model identified 21 molecules with a high probability of being senolytics.
- Three of these drugs (periplocin, oleandrin, ginkgetin) are able to destroy senescent cells.
- Oleandrin proved to be more effective than the most effective senolytic drug.
- An interdisciplinary approach can accelerate the search for treatments for diseases.
Most therapeutic drugs are toxic to some extent. The idea is to keep it as a dosage that has the intended effects and not harmful ones. Since these drugs are intended to kill certain cells, it makes sense that at larger doses they would be generally toxic.