Agata Blasiak is a Senior Research
Fellow in the N.1 Institute for Health (N.1) and Institute for Digital Medicine
(WisDM) at the National University of Singapore. Her three main achievements
include CURATE.AI, IDentif.AI, and SHEAR SCD.
CURATE.AI is an artificial intelligence (AI)-derived
platform designed to optimize dose selection that generates effective responses
to therapy with minimal toxicity. The platform has been clinically validated
and is now being investigated in oncology.
Dr. Blasiak has been working together
with clinicians and set up the first multi-patient CURATE.AI clinical trials in
oncology——CURATE.AI Multiple Myeloma and PRECISE CURATE.AI—— to optimize cancer
therapy in blood cancer and a range of solid tumors. PRECISE is in full swing
with several patients dosed and life-saving results already observed.
The IDentif.AI platform leverages AI to
look for the best combination of drugs against SARS-CoV-2 infection.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic Dr.
Blasiak and colleagues worked on optimizing which drugs to put together for the
highest chance of success in treating the patients.
IDentif.AI is different from traditional
AI as it does not use pre-existing data to train algorithms to predict drug interactions.
Also, IDentif.AI does not use in silico modeling to predict drug synergies.
Instead, IDentif.AI uses a small number of actual experiments to effectively
crowdsource the live virus and find the best possible drugs and respective
doses for optimal efficacy and safety.
With traditional drug screening, a
similar 12-drug set tested at ten different doses would have generated one
trillion possible combinations. Using IDentif.AI the number of combinations
needed to be tested to learn about this innumerable interaction space was cut
down to near 100. Given the drastic reduction in the number of tests, the
researchers completed the study within two weeks.
Using the IDentif.AI platform,
researchers have found that a combination of the antiviral drugs remdesivir,
ritonavir, and lopinavir works best against SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Blasiak is a
first-author of a publication describing this project, (Bioengineering and
Translational Medicine, 2020), which has already benefited the clinical
community.
The impact of IDentif.AI was
acknowledged by the SCS Tech Heroes in Crisis/Pathfinder Award received alongside
multiple software/app platforms that have been deployed in Singapore to
facilitate contact tracing and community safety.
Additionally, in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Blasiak developed a saliva collection device (SCD)
——SHEAR SCD. It was born to address an urgent need, making the most out of what
was available. Within a few months, the device had been patented, and the
project received funding to lead it to commercialization.
