A combination of AI and robotics to aid spinal cord injuries is being employed to help people caught up in the dilemma. A team led by Rutgers University employed the technique to stabilize Chondroitinase ABC (ChABC), an enzyme that can break down scar tissue from spinal cord injury and promote tissue regeneration. Whereas the enzyme only lasted a few hours at body temperature, it now lasts for more than a week-long enough to have a significant effect.
To begin, the researchers used machine learning to discover synthetic copolymers (artificial polymers formed from more than one monomer) that would stay the longest inside a person. The copolymers were made and tested using liquid-handling robots. According to Rutgers assistant professor and principal research investigator Adam Gormley, this was one of the “first times” AI and robots were used in tandem to develop therapeutic proteins that were so successful.
At the moment, the stabilized enzyme does not constitute a functional therapy for spinal cord injury. The experts observed that their technological collaboration produced a “promising pathway” for longer-term tissue regeneration, rather than the solution itself. Nonetheless, this experiment demonstrates one of the benefits of employing AI to develop treatments. Algorithms can identify compositions that would be difficult or time-consuming for human researchers to find, making cures possible where they were not previously.
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