The Art and Science of Applying AI in the Race to Protect Global Public Health

New viruses emerge with ever-increasing frequency; however, we still lack antiviral therapeutics for the vast majority of viral diseases, especially viruses that cause pandemics. Understanding how pandemic viruses turn our immune systems into our own worst enemies is critical to developing new therapeutic strategies in advance of the inevitable next pandemic. In a new public-private partnership, data science teams are joining forces with virologists to uncover how bodies respond to viral infections, and how those responses cause disease. The panel will discuss how the team combined molecular profiling of the deep lung environment from COVID-19 patients in the Intensive Care Unit with clinical and demographic data that leveraged a series of advanced statistical and analytical methods to discover new targets for novel approaches to treat COVID-19 disease. The team will discuss how the work is already informing drug target discovery efforts and changing the paradigm for drug development.