A research team at Asan Medical Center has started a project to build big data for immunosuppressive drugs’ side effects and artificial intelligence (AI)-based smart drug monitoring system.

The project, a part of the “Artificial Intelligence New Drug Development Platform Program” sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Science and ICT, will receive 3.8 billion won ($3.2 million) in funds for as long as three years starting from June.

Professor Park Sook-ryun, the lead developer for the project, and her team plans to come up with a platform that can predict the possibility of the side effects of the immunotherapies and promptly informs the medical workers and their patients so that they can make quick decisions in using expensive immunotherapeutic drugs safely and efficiently.

In detail, the team plans to expand the standard data model for pharmacovigilance purposes and build big data based on electronic hospital records, genome information, patient report, diagnosis and prescription data. The researchers also aim to develop an AI algorithm that predicts adverse side effects of immune anticancer drugs through genomic biomarker discovery and clinical information and genome-based AI learning.

Professor Park will also develop a smart pharmacovigilance platform that includes anticancer drug side effects prediction, early detection, and rapid reporting system, and perform multi-center clinical trials to verify the platform.

“Developing an AI-based smart drug monitoring platform for immuno-cancer drugs will contribute to the development of new drugs as well as helping patients with safe and efficient treatment,” Professor Park said. “We expect the prediction model that integrates clinical-genomic information will lead the technological superiority in the development of antimetabolite side effect biomarkers, which are still unknown in the world.”