Google's parent company has just created a new subsidiary. It is a pharmaceutical research laboratory that will use artificial intelligence from DeepMind to research new drugs. But what does the appearance of this laboratory imply?
Everyone remembers AlphaGo Zero, the artificial intelligence from the DeepMind company that had beat several Go game champions a few years ago to finally become invincible in this discipline. Alpha Go Zero had even become capable of inventing its own mathematics. In addition, DeepMind had also declared in 2018 to train its AI to recognize eye diseases . This very promising work could one day enable AI to replace our ophthalmologists.
As a CNBC article from November 5, 2021 explains, DeepMind will continue to distinguish itself in the field of medicine . Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has created Isomorphic Labs, yet another industry. However, it is neither more nor less than a pharmaceutical research laboratory that should collaborate with DeepMind.
According to sources, Isomorphic Labs should position itself as a precursor in “digital biology” . It's about "reimagining the whole drug discovery process" while using AI to “model and understand some of the fundamental mechanisms of life” .
Demis Hassabis, founder of Isomorphic Labs, explained in a blog post that biology can also be thought of as an information processing system. It would therefore be an isomorphism, which explains the name of the laboratory, i.e. a common structure between computer science and biology . If few details are currently available about the intentions of this new subsidiary, it should apparently not develop its own drugs. It would be more a question of developing models whose purpose will be to predict how future drugs will interact with our organizations. The objective would then be to market these models to various pharmaceutical companies.
“We believe that fundamental use of cutting-edge computational and AI methods can help scientists take their work to the next level and massively accelerate the drug discovery process “, said Demis Hassabis.
Based in the UK, Isomorphic Labs is therefore in full construction. Currently, the subsidiary is trying to recruit a whole team of experts in biology, artificial intelligence, pharmaceutical chemistry and biophysics. Obviously, it will be a few years before we can observe the first results, especially since DeepMind will have to develop a brand new AI as part of this project.
