August 26, 2024
The Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications hosted invited speaker Dr. Eleni Litsa for a talk titled AI in Drug Discovery: Applications & Challenges on Thursday 5 September 2024 at 12.00pm EEST.
The talk took place physically at the Lecture Room of the Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications, while participation was also possible via zoom.
About the talk: The development of new therapeutic drugs is a long and costly endeavor with an especially high failure rate. Extensive studies are being conducted before a drug reaches the stage of clinical trials, while it is estimated that 90% of clinical drug candidates will not reach the market.
Advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have opened up new possibilities in drug discovery facilitating the reduction in timelines, costs and attrition rates. In the last few years, AI is being increasingly integrated in the drug discovery process complementing traditional computational approaches. Yet, although the use of AI in drug discovery is rapidly expanding supporting an increasing number of tasks, significant challenges remain to be addressed. In this presentation, I will give an overview of how AI is being utilized in drug discovery, discussing specific applications, as well as limitations and current challenges.
Short Bio: Eleni Litsa completed her PhD program in Computer Science through a joint program between Rice University and NCSR Demokritos. Currently, she works in the biotech industry supporting the development of small molecule therapeutics as a Machine Learning Scientist. Prior to that, she worked on the development of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics in the pharma industry.