How AI and Digital Lab Tools are Joining the Fight Against COVID-19
BCGDV portfolio company LabTwin is helping researchers fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s how.
By Guru Singh, Head of Growth, LabTwin
In the past 3 months, COVID-19 has become a worldwide health crisis. Thousands of people are dying every day and billions of people are in lockdown. There are no approved drugs or vaccines to fight this new disease, which is part of the reason it has spread so quickly.
The life science industry has spurred into action against the COVID-19 pandemic. Public-private partnerships and international collaborations have sprung up around the world. Researchers are increasingly using AI and digital lab tools to help them work as quickly and efficiently as possible. Likewise, doctors and health officials are benefiting from AI and machine learning tools to diagnose COVID-19 and track its spread.
Digital Lab Tools Help Fight COVID-19
Digital lab tools and machine learning algorithms are helping researchers manage data, find new drug candidates and collaborate with international partners. This is happening in a few different ways.
Collecting, Managing and Sharing Data
Now more than ever, researchers need to be able to collect, structure, analyze and share large amounts of data. My company, LabTwin, which was built as a partnership between BCGDV and Sartorius, has developed a voice-activated digital lab assistant that allows scientists to record data and observations, hands-free and in real time, from anywhere in the lab or in the field. LabTwin then automatically transcribes and labels these data so researchers can quickly and easily share with colleagues.
Analyzing Drug Candidates
Companies of all sizes are leveraging the power of AI to analyze potential COVID-19 drug candidates. South Korean company Deargen, for example, is using their deep-learning tool MT-DTI to analyze chemical sequences of drug candidates. Deargen predicted that antiviral drugs atazanavir and remdesivir could be effective against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Similarly, Insilico Medicine, based in Hong Kong, has leveraged AI to uncover 100 potential drug candidates against COVID-19 in just four days. Innoplexus, based in Germany, has also used an AI tool to predict drug combinations that could be effective in COVID-19 patients, including the approved drug hydroxychloroquine. Computing giant IBM has also joined the fight, releasing 3,000 potential drug candidates identified by AI tools.
Collaboration
Companies are not only using AI to manage data and find new drug candidates. Digital tools also facilitate collaboration. Many large companies, startups, private research organizations, and funding bodies are currently collaborating to discover potential new treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. For example, UK companies Exscientia and Diamond Light Source are working with U.S research institute Calibr to study the protein structure of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and screen the effectiveness of 15,000 drug candidates against it. Likewise, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is collaborating with Moderna on their mRNA vaccine against the novel coronavirus. GlaxoSmithKline is also collaborating on two COVID-19 vaccines: one with Chinese pharmaceutical company Clover and another with the University of Queensland in Australia.
Digital lab tools, such as LabTwin’s voice-activated digital lab assistant, allow researchers to seamlessly integrate data and share information with collaborators located anywhere around the world. Real-time data collection and translation means that collaborators can drive research forward without having to wait for updates.
Digital Tools Help Diagnose and Track COVID-19
AI and machine learning tools can also help diagnose patients with COVID-19, and predict the spread of the virus.
Diagnosis
An Alibaba research institute has developed an algorithm that can tell in 96% of cases whether a patient is suffering from COVID-19, using only computer tomography images. Similarly, Australian AI startup DetectED-X has launched a free online learning tool to help radiologists diagnose COVID-19 from lung CT scans. A separate AI tool, developed by researchers at New York University, Wenzhou Central Hospital, and Cangnan People’s Hospital in China can help clinicians predict which COVID-19 patients will develop severe respiratory signs.
Predicting Disease Spread
Companies such as Canada’s BlueDot and Metabiota in the US use AI to predict disease outbreaks from news and health-care reports. BlueDot has been widely reported to have picked up Wuhan’s spike in pneumonia cases before the World Health Organization announced the outbreak. Other companies, such as Stratifyd, monitor a range of data, including social media, to identify disease clusters and provide other insights.
Digital Lab Tools Will Help Fight Future Pandemics
AI and digital lab tools are helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic on many fronts, from drug discovery and development to disease diagnosis and tracking. Digital tools will most likely play an even bigger role in future pandemics.
The world has seen pandemics before — SARS, MERS, and the Spanish Flu, just to name a few — and experts agree that, in our highly connected world with large cities and high-density living, we’re almost certain to experience more pandemics in the future. AI-powered companies like LabTwin are continually working to better support scientists, healthcare workers, and health officials as they fight to contain this pandemic and work to mitigate any future outbreaks.
