UAE – Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) has teamed up with Quris, an artificial intelligence (AI) innovator in the pharmaceutical arena, to develop a centre of excellence in Bio-AI in Abu Dhabi.
MBZUAI and Quris-AI have signed an agreement to set up a world-class Bio-AI centre that will support the development of safer, and highly personalised medications with an aim to improve the quality of life of many patients in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
With this collaboration, Quris, which has operations in Boston and Tel-Aviv, is now establishing its subsidiary, Quris-UAE in Abu Dhabi.
The collaboration will utilize technological advances at Quris-AI, developer of the world’s first Bio-AI clinical prediction platform, to improve and accelerate the drug development pipeline thus saving hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development costs.
Speaking on the new deal, Founder of Quris Dr. Isaac Bentwich said: “We are delighted to be collaborating with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi, given its strong commitment to advancing AI and significant opportunities for synergy.”
Quris’s AI Chip-on-Chip technology leverages a patented process to test thousands of known safe and unsafe drugs on thousands of miniaturized Patients-on-a-Chip applying an automated, high-throughput system.
Moreover, the innovative Quris Bio-AI Clinical Prediction Platform is the first AI breakthrough to close the clinical prediction gap by effectively predicting which drug candidates will work safely in humans.
Its system rapidly performs test interactions using predictive AI technologies that simulate genetically diverse patients, eliminating the need for animal testing and avoiding the risk and cost associated with failed clinical trials.
Under the strategic deal with Quris, MBZUAI will provide expertise in the development of predictive AI models while incentivising sought-after AI graduates to stay in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as they begin their careers.
As part of the collaboration, MBZUAI Deputy Department Chair and Associate Professor of Machine Learning Kun Zhang will work together on a research project aimed at accelerating the discovery of personal, actionable causal effects on drug pharmacokinetics
The project titled ‘Disrupting Personalized Medicine using Patient-on-a-Chip and Causal Discovery’ will also support the development of personalized drug administration protocol, as well as a patient-on-a-chip method for the causal discovery of patient-specific treatments.
“Our unique capacities in computational biology and machine learning at MBZUAI will enhance Quris’ efforts to accelerate the development of new personalized and potentially life-saving medicines,” President of MBZUAI Professor Eric Xing stated in a release.
He pointed out that the organelle systems being developed at Quris are a revolutionary platform for high-throughput drug testing, which can be best served by a similarly high-throughput drug design pipeline using AI.
In addition, the MBZUAI President is in advanced talks with Israeli biologist Aaron Ciechanover and the Quris team focused on solving UAE-specific health problems faster and more cost-effectively.
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