AI-Driven Amino Acid Drugs Surface as a Promising Treatment for Eye Conditions

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revolutionize multiple sectors, and one area seeing tangible benefits is drug development. Historically, the creation of new medicines was a time-consuming endeavor, but AI-driven amino acid research is proving to accelerate the early developmental stages and get drugs to the market faster.

Researchers at the Wilmer Eye Institute and Johns Hopkins Medicine have now harnessed artificial intelligence (AI) to predict which amino acid components in therapeutic proteins can effectively deliver drugs to animal eye cells. By deeply understanding protein structures, AI can refine drug formulations, potentially minimizing harmful side effects while helping to treat eye conditions such as glaucoma and macular degeneration.

But how reliable are these AI-driven amino acid models for drug delivery, and where do they stack up when it comes to current drug delivery methods such as eye drops or implantable devices? To explore AI’s potential in this field, we turn to an expert Dr. Christopher Clark, Professor at Indiana University.

Christopher’s Thoughts:

“Hi. I’m Dr. Christopher Clark, a professor at Indiana University.

AI offers an amazing tool for the development of new drugs. The biggest gain is speed to market. What that means is the early stage of development where we can reduce the amount of time that a drug takes to get to market. All that though is is in the developmental time, not in the testing time.

Now, Any AI developed drug probably can have some side effects as well, potentially serious. For that reason why, they’re going to have to go through the same FDA testing that any other drug is developed, and that’s going to take the exact same amount of time. So really the game for AI is in the development at this moment in time, not in the testing itself, which still is substantially months to years in often, in most cases. That is to say in no way does AI develop treatments, are any less safe than traditional treatments.

Oftentimes, the AI development may remove some of the serious side effects from drugs that are coming out of the market because they look at that protein structure, and they remove the protein structure that causes some of those side effects or can reduce or remove those proteins to make those side effects less. AI developed amino acid sequencing models like DeepMine’s AlphaFold have been shown to be very accurate and identify protein structures of millions of proteins.

With this understanding of the protein structure, it’s highly possible to improve drug delivery to the structures of these such as the eye. An example of that is think of eye drops. We put a drop on top of the cornea. That drop has to penetrate through multiple layers of that cornea to get into the eye to treat the things inside the eye like macular degeneration, cataracts, things like inflammatory mediators inside the eye.

Because those different layers are both hydrophobic and hydrophilic going back forth, it is really tough to get our drugs currently from the front of the eye back to that eye because penetration isn’t very good. What does hydrophobic and hydrophilic mean? Think of it like trying to send some something through multiple layers of oil, water, oil, water. It’s really tough to get a molecule to go and do that.

AI offers a potential there to get better penetration to inside the eye itself by circumventing some of these features of the eye, and thereby improving the overall quality of treatment that we have for our eyes.”

Article written by Cara Schildmeyer.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Education R&D
Will the New Education R&D Bill Spark the Innovation Schools Desperately Need?
April 25, 2025

In a rare show of bipartisan cooperation, Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and John Cornyn (R-TX) have introduced the New Essential Education Discoveries (NEED) Act, aimed at revolutionizing how the U.S. invests in education innovation. The bill proposes a new National Center for Advanced Development in Education—akin to DARPA but for schools—within the Institute for…

Read More
How Verizon Business Utilizes UGC for Sales Enablement
How Verizon Business Utilizes UGC for Sales Enablement
April 24, 2025

In this episode of UGC for B2B, host David Dabney welcomes Cesar Teran, Verizon’s Sales Enablement Lead for Channel, to explore how user-generated content (UGC) is transforming training and team engagement at Verizon Business. Cesar shares the journey of introducing UGC into Verizon’s training initiatives, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, collaboration, and celebrating contributions….

Read More
digital freight invoicing
ODeX Is Leading the Charge in Digital Freight Invoicing
April 24, 2025

Global shipping continues to grapple with fragmented billing processes, often delaying cargo movement. According to McKinsey, adopting an electronic bill of lading could save $6.5 billion in direct costs and enable $40 billion in global trade. As vessels carry goods for thousands of shippers per voyage, the administrative burden of managing and reconciling invoices…

Read More
Human Intelligence Movement
Just Thinking… about Reimagining Education for the AI Era with the Human Intelligence Movement
April 24, 2025

As artificial intelligence reshapes education, work, and daily life, educators are grappling with how to prepare students for a future where human skills—not just knowledge—will be paramount. In fact, a growing number of reports highlight that employers increasingly value collaboration, communication, and emotional intelligence over memorized content. Amid this transformation, the Human Intelligence Movement…

Read More