summary: Researchers are turning to artificial intelligence to find new drugs that can block kappa opioid receptors in hopes of easing opioid addiction.
sauce: Biophysical Society
About 3 million Americans suffer from opioid use disorders, and more than 80,000 Americans die from overdoses each year.
Opioid drugs such as heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, and morphine activate opioid receptors. Activation of μ-opioid receptors not only produces analgesia and euphoria, but also physical dependence and decreased respiration, the latter of which is fatal in case of drug overdose.
Preclinical studies have shown that blocking kappa opioid receptors may provide a promising pharmacological approach for treating opioid addiction.
Leslie Salas Estrada of the Marta Filizolla Laboratory at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hopes to alleviate opioid addiction by finding drugs that block the kappa opioid receptors.Postdoctoral fellow Salas Estrada announced on Monday 20 February that 67th Annual Biophysical Congress in San Diego, CA.
κ opioid receptors are known to mediate reward in the brain.
“If you’re addicted and you try to quit, at some point you’ll have withdrawal symptoms that can be very difficult to overcome,” explained Salas Estrada. I need more medicine. Blocking kappa opioid receptor activity has been shown in animal models to reduce the need for drug use during withdrawal. ”
But finding drugs that can block the activity of proteins such as the kappa opioid receptor can be a long and expensive process. Computational tools improve efficiency, but it can take months to screen billions of compounds. Instead, Salas Estrada uses artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize processes.
“Artificial intelligence has the advantage of being able to acquire vast amounts of information and recognize patterns from it. We think it will help us design, and that way we could potentially reduce the time and costs associated with drug discovery,” she said.
See also
They used information about the kappa opioid receptor and known drugs to train a computer model and compounds that might block the receptor using a reinforcement learning algorithm that rewards properties favorable to drug treatment. generated.
So far, the team has identified several compounds with promising properties and will work with collaborators to synthesize them before finally testing their safety and efficacy in animal models. , is testing its ability to block kappa opioid receptors in cells.
About this AI and Opioid Addiction Research News
author: Leanne Fox
sauce: Biophysical Society
contact: Leann Fox – Biophysical Society
image: image is public domain
Original research: The survey results are 67th Annual Biophysical Society in San Diego, California.
