Artificial intelligence promises to unlock new cures for cancer and other diseases by revolutionising the speed, cost and availability of personally designed drugs and enabling these to be tested on “digital twins” before being given to patients.
AI will enable broad-spectrum like chemotherapy to be replaced by these more personalised, better targeted treatments.
Scientists at La Trobe University’s new Australian Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Medical Innovation (ACAMI), launched today, will also apply AI techniques to mRNA therapy development to enable faster design of more precise and effective treatments.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Theo Farrell said ACAMI would sit within La Trobe’s Research and Innovation Precinct, a core component of the University City of the Future, positioning it as a place of innovation and collaboration.
Partnering with mRNA Victoria, ACAMI will play a key role in developing an AI-enabled medical ecosystem in Victoria, ensuring the state’s world-leading medical innovation keeps pace with global standards as AI capability grows.
“The potential of this partnership, both for scientific discovery and student learning is really exciting,” Professor Farrell said.
ACAMI director and chief scientist Professor Wei Xiang said the centre was Australia’s first AI medical research facility and the world’s first university innovation centre specialising in using artificial intelligence to develop immunotherapies and cancer vaccines.
In one of three initial projects, La Trobe researchers have recently begun collaborative work in partnership with the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute to create digital twins for breast cancer tumours. These twins will predict which patients will respond best to immunotherapy, their likely side effects and survival rates.
ACAMI member Professor Nilmini Wickramasinghe said digital twin technology had been established in the 1960s when NASA first used it to build replicas of space shuttles. The breast cancer research was one of the first instances of it being used to support clinical decision making.
Professor Wickramasinghe, who is also La Trobe University’s Optus Chair in Digital Health, said the technology would become more accurate as patient datasets grew.
“Healthcare is a natural progression for AI technology as patients demand more personalised and precise forms of cancer care,” she said.
“AI for healthcare is what antibiotics were for medicine in 1910.”
The research power of mRNA and AI was the driving force behind the rapid rollout of global COVID vaccines during the pandemic.
That same pairing will be harnessed at La Trobe, where ACAMI researchers will tap into a soon-to-be-built clinical-scale mRNA manufacturing facility thanks to an agreement facilitated by the Victorian Government with the centre’s first industry partner, German biotechnology company BioNTech.
The State Government has committed $10 million over five years to the centre, while La Trobe will contribute $9.3 million.
Minister for Economic Growth Tim Pallas said: “Our $10 million investment in the new Australian Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Medical Innovation will help Victorian researchers make medical breakthroughs and save lives”.
ACAMI will couple that technology with Australia’s first NVIDIA DGX H200 and the NVIDIA Clara suite of computing platforms and software services to turbocharge work in both diagnosis and research.
Rory Kelleher, global business development lead for healthcare and life sciences at NVIDIA, said “AI and accelerated computing have the potential to solve some of the healthcare industry’s greatest challenges”.
“ACAMI’s AI initiatives, powered by NVIDIA Clara and DGX H200 systems, will help bring real benefits – from disease detection to treatment planning – to the patients who need it most.”
Professor Xiang said an immediate byproduct of the supercomputers’ use would be much faster and more accurate analytics of massive amounts of medical datasets – what he classed as the “low-hanging fruit” of AI supercomputing.
Professor Xiang said AI also had the potential to halve drug development times, accelerating discovery and clinical trials of new treatments.
“The potential of AI in medical research is huge. With AI, we can develop precision medicine that addresses the unique characteristics of each patient, significantly improving treatment,” he said.
“Imagine being able to vaccinate yourself against cancer. AI and mRNA brings us closer to that for a whole range of cancers.”
ACAMI will open at La Trobe on 13 September. Initial projects include:
Lab on a chip: The NanoMslide is a cancer-detecting biosensor invented by La Trobe researchers and being commercialised by La Trobe spin-out company AlleSense. It enables the detection of cancer cells based on colour, without the need for chemicals, using cutting-edge nanotechnology to provide faster, cheaper and more accurate diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer. ACAMI will advance this technology further, allowing for rapid automated image assessment, which will support more accurate diagnosis of complex cancers.
The digital twin: Researchers will construct a virtual model of patient’s tumours using genetic information to determine how a person’s cancer will respond to possible treatments. We anticipate that the project, in collaboration with the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute, will aid clinical decision making, saving time and money for cancer treatments, some of which run cost thousands of dollars each week.
Colour cell mapping: Researchers at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute are using molecules from jellyfish and sea anemones to inject colours into human cells to track how breast cancer spreads. The study will use AI to map each cancer cell with their genetic profile and predict which cells are able to resist treatment and spread. This will give doctors a better understanding of which patients are more likely to relapse and which drugs to prescribe for the most effective treatment.
Victoria is responsible for almost 60 per cent of Australia’s pharmaceutical exports, making it the state’s highest-value advanced manufactured export, according to Invest Victoria.
ACAMI aims to build on that reputation, becoming a globally recognised and commercial sustainable centre which leverages AI technologies, data and skills innovation to drive growth of an AI-enabled medical innovation in Victoria.
The centre will build upon on La Trobe University’s existing capabilities across AI research, cancer and immunotherapy research, a well-established clinical trial network and recognised leadership in producing industry-ready graduates.
The biotech sector employs more than 100,000 people in Victoria, according to AusBiotech’s most recent industry snapshot.
ACAMI will further develop workforce in the burgeoning AI industry. The Tech Council of Australia said the industry employed 800 workers in 2014 and more than 33,000 in 2023. By 2030, it’s expected to create 200,000 jobs.
