Pharmacy school AI lab evolving to improve drug development, advance clinical research

BUFFALO, N.Y. — University at Buffalo researcher Murali Ramanathan, PhD, has used artificial intelligence (AI) since its nascent days while exploring possible treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s disease.

Today, Ramanathan, professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, is expanding his use of AI to analyze complex biomedical data to ultimately improve drug development for many diseases, though MS remains the heart of his focus.

Much of his work takes place in the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Clinical Pharmacology, which is located on the third floor of the Pharmacy Building on the South Campus.  

Affiliated with the UB Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, the lab allows Ramanathan and his interdisciplinary team to apply AI, deep learning, large language models, pharmacometrics and advanced analytics to real-world health care and biomedical data. 

At UB, there are hundreds of researchers using AI for public good, including developing new AI-powered technology and ideas that tackle pressing societal challenges in education, health care, sustainability and other areas.

“Our lab brings together experts in disciplines such as neurology and radiology,  engineering, computer science, and statistics,” Ramanathan says. “This cross-collaboration of skills helps us to tackle complex problems that no one single discipline could solve alone.”

Ramanathan has six researchers working with him specifically on various AI and drug development projects.

“With AI, researchers can analyze huge amounts of data very quickly,” he says. “This helps us identify patterns and predict how someone’s MS might progress, for instance, or how they might respond to certain medications.

“I work on diseases that have a great level of uncertainty and complexity, and they require large amounts of data,” he says. “AI is better suited to work on challenges like that.”

Multiple disciplines use lab

The graduate students who work in Ramanathan’s lab focus on different aspects of AI. For example, a neuroscience student is looking at how to use AI methods for MS treatment, and a data sciences student is working to develop new AI methods and user interfaces. Meanwhile, pharmacy sciences students are using AI to solve problems in pharmacometrics, in pharmacy counseling and for modeling disease progression.

“We want to be able to develop methods that are reliable, predictable, robust and effective,” Ramanathan says.

Drug development involves taking a chemical entity, whether it’s a protein or a small molecule, and turning it into a product that can be injected into a human, he explains.

“What AI can help us do is to match the molecule to the disease and make sure the patients get the right drug and the right dose at the right time,” he says. “While our capacity to generate and synthesize new drugs has grown significantly, you can’t carry too many drugs into trials. You have to make decisions along the way and eventually reduce it to one drug to submit. AI could have a huge impact in enabling better decision-making.”

Gates Foundation grant

For the last year, Ramanathan has been working under a $275,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to develop protocols for clinical trials.

One of the biggest sponsors of clinical trials across the world, the Gates Foundation has specific disease areas they are tackling in developing countries, including tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, maternal health and child health. And its clinicians need a roadmap before starting clinical trials, Ramanathan explains.

“This is like a construction diagram with a lot of details about how the typical trial can run,” he says. “We are helping define where they are going with the trial, what they’re going to do with each patient, what data they’re going to connect and how it’s going to be meaningful.”

Ramanathan and his team are using public domain data and data provided by his collaborators at the Gates Foundation and elsewhere.

“I hope we’ll be able to extend the grant further and do new things,” he says. “So far, it’s been a very positive experience working with the foundation. It has opened up avenues for us.”