Combining Nanomedicine and AI for Fighting Cancer

Laboratory Study 

Over the last few decades, nanotechnology has provided innovative solutions for some of the world’s most pressing problems concerning energy, the environment, and health. An important application of nanotechnology is in the field of nanomedicine, where nanoscale systems are leveraged for their unique properties to improve the way we treat and diagnose various diseases, particularly cancer. In nanomedicine, scientists are in constant search of novel nanomaterials that can overcome biological as well as economic barriers that have limited the successful translation of these therapies from the lab to the clinic. Predictive computational models could help to accelerate the translation of nanomedicine into clinical practice.

Dr. Suhair Sunoqrot has recently created novel versatile nanoparticles from plant polyphenols and used them to load bioactive natural products as anticancer treatment modalities. Treatment regimens that combine these nanoparticles with conventional chemotherapeutic agents hold great potential to improve their therapeutic efficacy in cancer therapy. However, finding the optimal combination(s) is limited by the large parameter space that must be explored. In this project, Suhair Sunoqrot collaborates with Dr. Shadi Albarqouni to explore artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms created by his team as an innovative tool supporting the prediction of the optimal nanoparticle-chemotherapy combinations. The current project involves the screening of two types of nanoparticles loaded with a bioactive natural product (curcumin) in combination with various chemotherapy drugs against human cancer and normal cell lines. Various biological assays will be conducted to generate enough experimental datasets. These will be used to build an AI model for a combination treatment outcome prediction, which will be further validated experimentally. 

The project aims to discover successful nanomaterial-chemotherapy combinations, which will improve cancer therapy.