Application 1 – health – computational drug repurposing

Statista (source: https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/ecommerce/beauty-health-personal-household-care/health-care/worldwide) shows that the worldwide healthcare domain is projected to generate revenue figures exceeding US$63 billion in 2023 while enjoying an annual growth rate of 10.15%. Numbers aside, the health domain is one of the few industries directly affecting everyone. Subsequently, its relevance to the average Joe is significant.

The health industry is not new to the field of AI. Several AI applications exist, from disease research acceleration to drug discovery, medical imaging, and patient screening. More recently, AI played a massive role in accelerating the discovery of the COVID-19 vaccine (see https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio/ai-and-the-covid-19-vaccine-modernas-dave-johnson/). It is safe to say that the health domain motivates AI research. Given its extreme sensitivity, one of the biggest challenges...