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New treatments

Science podcast: the AI revolution in drug development

The Swiss Connection science podcast
The Swiss Connection science podcast SWI swissinfo.ch

Pharmaceutical giants, including Swiss firms Roche and Novartis, are betting big on artificial intelligence to discover new drugs to treat a range of diseases. But there’s a long road ahead to bring AI-discovered drugs to patients.

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I report on the Swiss pharmaceutical industry and healthcare topics such as access to medicine, biomedical innovation, and the impact of diseases like cancer. I grew up just outside San Francisco and studied international affairs with a focus on development economics and healthcare policy. Prior to joining SWI swissinfo.ch in 2018, I was a freelance journalist and a researcher on business and human rights.

I lead diverse teams of distribution specialists and multimedia journalists in creating multilingual content for a range of online platforms. I oversee the strategic development of our podcast and video products, driving innovative content creation and audience engagement. After training as a broadcast journalist at City University of London, I worked in production and on-air as a journalist or contributor for a range of prime-time TV and radio programmes at top-tier broadcasters including the BBC, NPR, Deutsche Welle, and various commercial networks.

My work is focused on making videos and podcasts about science and technology topics. I specialize in developing explainatory video formats for mobile viewing, mixing animation and documentary styles. I studied filmmaking and animation at Zurich University of the Arts and began working as a video journalist at SWI swissinfo.ch in 2004. Since then I have specialised in creating different styles of animation for our visual products.

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In this episode of ‘The Swiss Connection’External link we’re looking at how AI is revolutionising the development of new therapies, and whether it is living up to its promise.

Pharmaceutical labs have been using machine learning to assist drug development for years but until recently there was some reticence to rely too heavily on AI. This mindset has changed with the latest generation of AI models that can analyse and find patterns in vast and disparate datasets and even images. Beyond speeding up drug discovery, AI has the potential to identify and even generate molecules that chemists haven’t even dreamed of.

Swissinfo speaks with medicinal chemist Matthias Steger and Gisbert Schneider, who teaches computer-assisted drug design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, about how AI helped discover a drug candidate for a rare, degenerative eye disease.

Join Jessica Davis Plüss on the new season of ‘The Swiss Connection’External link.

Find out more about the ‘The Swiss Connection’ science podcast and our other Swiss podcasts in English here, on Apple PodcastsExternal link, or SpotifyExternal link.

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR