AI Tool Pinpoints Proteins Linked To Disease

Jerusalem: Israeli researchers have created an AI-based tool to identify critical proteins that could unlock insights into human diseases. The tool, called Weighted Graph Anomalous Node Detection (WGAND), uses methods similar to those that detect fraud in social networks to analyse how proteins interact in the body, Xinhua news agency reported. Published in the journal GigaScience, the algorithm spots unusual proteins that connect heavily with others and play central roles in biological processes -- key to understanding health and disease.

Proteins are essential molecules in our bodies, and they interact with each other in complex networks, known as protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. The team from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev developed the algorithm to analyse these PPI networks to detect "anomalous" proteins -- those that stand out due to their unique pattern of weighted interactions.