Read Time:
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, mass vaccinations have begun to raise the tantalizing prospect of herd immunity that eventually curtails or halts the spread of SARS-CoV-2. But what if herd immunity is never fully achieved - or if the mutating virus gives rise to hyper-virulent variants that diminish the benefits of vaccination?
Those questions underscore the need for effective treatments for people who continue to fall ill with the coronavirus. While a few existing drugs show some benefit, there s a pressing need to find new therapeutics.
Led by The University of New Mexico s Tudor Oprea, MD, PhD, scientists have created a unique tool to help drug researchers quickly identify molecules capable of disarming the virus before it invades human cells or disabling it in the early stages of the infection.
E-Mail
IMAGE: Detection of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) using explainable AI. The AI-technique is used to generate a heatmap showing TILs (red) and other tissues and cells (blue and green). view more
Credit: Image: Klauschen/Charité
Researchers at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and TU Berlin as well as the University of Oslo have developed a new tissue-section analysis system for diagnosing breast cancer based on artificial intelligence (AI). Two further developments make this system unique: For the first time, morphological, molecular and histological data are integrated in a single analysis. Secondly, the system provides a clarification of the AI decision process in the form of heatmaps. Pixel by pixel, these heatmaps show which visual information influenced the AI decision process and to what extent, thus enabling doctors to understand and assess the plausibility of the results of the AI analysis. This represents a decisive and essential step forw