A comprehensive review on the application of artificial intelligence in drug discovery

Abstract

The 21st century is witnessing immense achievements in human history, starting from home science to space science. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a salient one among these feats, the critical factor of the 4th industrial revolution. Health is the primary and essential asset for the continuity of human civilization on this planet. Not only must we address the deadly existing diseases like Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, heart diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, etc., but on top of that, we must effectively predict, prevent and respond to potential pathogens capable of causing havoc like the recent outbreak caused by SARS-CoV-2. AI-enabled technology with the computational capacity of a computer and reasoning ability of humans saves surplus labor and time that is majorly consumed in target validation, lead optimization, molecular representation, and designing reaction pathways, which traditionally is a decade-long way of searching, visualizing, studying, imagining, experimenting and maintaining a ton of data. This article would focus on how AI will help find the drug-like properties in the compound screening phase predicting the Structure-Activity Relationship (SAR) and ADMET properties in lead identification and optimization phases, sustainable development of chemicals in the synthesis phases up to AI's assistance in the successful conduct of clinical trials and repurposing.