Release date: 2018-01-19
According to a report by Reuters on January 18th, research involving artificial intelligence (AI) "robot scientists" showed that triclosan, a common ingredient in toothpaste, can fight resistant malaria strains.
In a study in the Science Report, scientists from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom used artificial intelligence robots to perform high-throughput screening of toothpaste ingredients. They believe that this component of triclosan may be in two critical stages – the liver and Blocking malaria infections in the blood.
About 500,000 people die each year from malaria, and the vast majority of them are children in extremely poor areas of Africa. The disease can be treated with a variety of drugs, but as the resistance of the strain continues to increase, the risk of some strains being drug-free in the future is also increasing.
Steve Oliver of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge says that for these reasons, the development of new drugs is particularly urgent. He is responsible for the research with Elizabeth Bilsland.
When the malaria parasite is transferred to the new host by mosquito bites, it enters the liver where it matures and reproduces, then invades the red blood cells, multiplies and spreads throughout the body, causing fever and other life-threatening complications.
For some time, scientists have realized that triclosan can block the growth of Plasmodium during the blood-infected phase by inhibiting the action of enolyl reductase (ENR), which is involved in the production of fatty acids.
In toothpaste, this inhibition process helps prevent the accumulation of plaque bacteria. However, in this latest study, Birsland's team found that triclosan also inhibits a completely different enzyme in the malaria parasite, dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR).
Dihydrofolate reductase is the main target of antimalarial pyrimethamine, and the resistance of Plasmodium (especially Plasmodium in Africa) to this drug is increasing. Studies by the Cambridge Research Group have shown that triclosan can even inhibit dihydrofolate reductase in drug-resistant Plasmodium.
“The robotic researcher found that triclosan is effective against malaria, which gives us hope, maybe we can use it to develop a new drug,†said research team leader Elizabeth Biersland. "Triclosan is a safe compound that acts on two important nodes in the growth of Plasmodium, making it difficult to develop resistance."
The study used an artificial intelligence robotic scientist (nicknamed Eve) to automate and accelerate the process of drug discovery. To achieve this goal, the robot makes its own assumptions and tests it to interpret the observations, conduct experiments with laboratory robots, analyze the experimental results, change the hypotheses, and then repeat the process.
Source: Bio Valley
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