Eventbrite Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ai3sd-online-seminar-series-drug-repurposing-for-covid-19-tickets-110096479534

This seminar forms part of the AI3SD Online Seminar Series that will run across the summer. Please sign up to register for this event, and the weblink for the seminar will be sent to you the day before the event. A recording of this seminar will be made available on our AI3SD YouTube Channel.

Pandemics, such as Covid-19. are by definition essentially unanticipatable and rapid onset. Features unfortunately incompatible with current industry capabilities in drug discovery. This has led to a large number of studies, both theoretical and experimental to reposition, or reuse an existing drug for Covid-19 therapy. There are some general patterns of success in historical repositioning that point to the most likely strategies for drug repositioning, and also, following some specific data gathering and curation, to point towards specific actionable activities for Covid-19. The presentation will briefly overview drug repositioning as a general strategy, and then the focussed application of core concepts towards the treatment of Covid-19.

John has had extensive experience in technology driven drug discovery. In his work as CIO at the Medicine Discovery Catapult he leads research projects for developing and applying informatics-based approaches for drug discovery. Prior to this he worked for Benevolent AI where he was involved in the development of novel data extraction and integration strategies, integrating deep learning and other Artificial Intelligence approaches to drug target validation and drug optimisation.

Interview: Dr Wendy Warr interviewed John prior to this seminar. This interview can be found here: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/441804/