Insilico reveals a ‘soup to nuts’ process for AI-generated lung fibrosis drug

Insilico Medicine, a developer of artificial intelligence tools for drug discovery, has mapped out its process for making an experimental drug for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). In a paper published in Nature Biotechnology , Insilico researchers described how they used the company's proprietary AI platforms to find a new target—TRAF2- and NCK-interacting protein kinase, or TNIK—for fibrotic disorders and then select the compound that would be best equipped to go after it (DOI: 10.1038 /s41587-024-02143-0 ). The researchers used Insilico's PandaOmics to identify the target first. The Insilico team fed the platform multiomics datasets from patients' tissues, along with text from the scientific literature. PandaOmics spat out a ranked list of targets. TNIK emerged as number one after the team applied a few filters, including disease mechanisms, protein class, and the likelihood of "druggability" with a small molecule. PandaOmics also had a suggestion: target TNIK to treat IPF. TNIK is