Researchers at the University of Surrey have built an artificial intelligence (AI) model that identifies chemical compounds that promote healthy aging—paving the way towards pharmaceutical and nutraceutical innovations that may effectively extend a person’s lifespan while simultaneously enjoying a better quality of life.

A team of chemists built a machine learning model based on the information from the DrugAge database to predict whether a compound can extend the life of Caenorhabditis elegans—a translucent worm that shares a similar metabolism to humans. The worm’s shorter lifespan gave the researchers the opportunity to see the impact of the chemical compounds.

The AI singled out three compounds that have an 80 percent chance of increasing the lifespan of elegans:

• flavonoids (plant-derived antioxidant pigments that promote cardiovascular health),

• fatty acids (such as omega-3), and

• organooxygens (compounds that contain carbon to oxygen bonds, such as alcohol).

Sofia Kapsiani, co-author of the study and final year undergraduate student at the University of Surrey, said, “Aging is increasingly being recognized as a set of diseases in modern medicine, and we can apply the tools of the digital world, such as AI, to help slow down or protect against ageing and age-related diseases. Our study demonstrates the revolutionary ability of AI to aid the identification of compounds with anti-ageing properties.”

Lead author Brendan Howlin, lead author of the study and Senior Lecturer in Computational Chemistry at the University of Surrey, commented that this study “shows the power and potential of AI to drive significant benefits in human health.”

Reference:

Kapsiani S, Howlin BJ. “Random forest classification for predicting lifespan-extending chemical compounds.” Scientific Reports, 2021; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-93070-6.

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