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AI in Medicine

  • Writer: Sunhyeong Yi
    Sunhyeong Yi
  • Oct 13
  • 2 min read

Oct 13, 2025

Sunhyeong Yi



Have you ever wondered how long it usually takes to create a new medicine? Experts say it usually takes 10~15 years. It takes much longer than expected. Why would it take so long? It’s because humans each have so many different reactions to the medicine. But since AI is taking over almost all of the field, it is no exception for health care. Experts say that AI can reduce the amount of money and time that is used on making medicine.


Medicine is usually made in 6 steps. First, scientists try to find the drug candidates that have a potential to cure it. The second step is called Preclinical Testing. When they have found the right chemical compounds to use as a medicine, they test it on animals before testing it into humans and it is more studied in the lab. Third, if Preclinical Testing is done successfully, it is now tested on humans. When the test is done, they send their drug to the regulatory agencies like FDA to get confirmed. Once approved, the drug is manufactured in company and then sent to hospitals or pharmacies. Lastly, even after it is confirmed, the monitoring continues to prevent unnecessary incidents.


Then how can AI be helpful to this step? AI can be used to find the proper chemical compounds more efficiently, this will speed up the whole process much more. Then, it evaluates tons of chemical compounds to find out which one will best suit the protein that is related to the disease. Next, AI suggests molecules structure that will likely achieve the needed properties. It also predicts the reactions of animals without having any animal testing but only according to the given information which will be more ethical and reduce the time.


The reason drug development takes too long is it takes so much time finding the right chemical compound and even if we found one, there are rarely ones that can be used for real drugs. Also it is hard and really complicated to check about side effects or safety to humans. They have to check it through tons of people to clearly make sure it is safe since people’s lives are dependent on it.


AI has the potential to be the most efficient tool for drug development. Recently, NVIDIA released a new AI ‘Evo’ that predicts protein structure and will be used for drug development. Drug development is a long, complex process but with the help of AI, scientists expect that new medicines will become available to us faster, safer.



 
 
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