Nordic Life Science 1
PHYSICS & CHEMISTRY // COMMENTARY The 2024 Nobel
Prizes in Chemistry and Physics reflect the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on life sciences. These awards, celebrating advancements in protein design and neural networks, demonstrate how AI is transforming how we approach drug discovery, personalized medicine, and healthcare management. H AVING WORKED WITH AI for over three decades, across regions such as Australia, the Middle East, Sweden, and the USA, I’ve witnessed first-hand how AI is fundamentally changing the way we understand and treat diseases. These projects gave me a front-row seat to the challenges and opportunities of applying AI in real-world healthcare environments. Fifteen years ago, I predicted that AI would play a central role in healthcare, and today, that prediction is becoming reality. Across global projects, I’ve seen AI revolutionize how we diagnose, treat, and manage complex health conditions. AI-Driven Drug Discovery: Halicin and Beyond In 2020, I presented a talk titled "Medicine in the Age of the Intelligent Machine" at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, reporting on various breakthroughs in AI, including the discovery of Halicin. Developed by the MIT Jameel Clinic, Halicin was the first antibiotic discovered by AI, identified through AI's ability to rapidly screen millions of chemical compounds. This breakthrough highlighted how AI is dramatically reducing the time it takes to discover critical therapies, such as antibiotics for drugresistant bacteria. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper, celebrates how AI, particularly through AlphaFold, solved the decades-old problem of predicting protein structures from amino acid sequences. This leap forward allows for precise drug targeting, vastly improving how quickly and effectively we develop new therapies. AI Systems Supporting Chronic Condition Management in Australia In 2008 in Australia, we developed multi-AI agent systems to assist patients with chronic conditions in managing the complexity of their care plans. This work, done in collaboration with Monash University and British Telecom, helped patients co-ordinate multiple tasks – from medication schedules to managing appointments – resulting in improved adherence and outcomes. This initiative demonstrated how AI can streamline care coordination and empower patients with chronic diseases to manage their health better. AI in Large-Scale Healthcare Prediction: A Swedish Initiative In Sweden, I contributed to one of the most ambitious projects, where advanced machine learning was used to connect comprehensive healthcare data from quality registers, hospital records, and drug registries. This project aimed to predict patient outcomes by analyzing large datasets, improving personalized care and enabling more efficient resource allocation. AI's ability to integrate diverse healthcare data can transform how we predict and manage patient health, enhancing both individual care and public health outcomes. Neural Networks and Their Broad Impact The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, recognized their groundbreaking work on artificial neural networks, which now power much of the AI used in life sciences. While Boltzmann machines, one of Hinton’s early contributions, are no longer widely used, they paved the way for modern deep-learning models that are reshaping healthcare, from medical imaging to genomics. Neural networks are particularly impactful in medical imaging, where AI-powered systems can detect early signs NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG | 63