When I first heard about quantum computing, my head went straight to sci-fi. I imagined a quantum computing-powered robot that could predict our every move and kill us all. I think it’s safe to say that the first thing I imagined was not a tool that could improve our Drug Discovery system.
I was really surprised to see that it takes over 15 years and $1.5 billion on average for a single drug to be approved by the FDA. Without that kind of roadblock to drug discovery, we could have much more affordable and efficient healthcare. A big reason for the large price and time associated with drug discovery is the amount of testing that goes into making a drug.
Recently, researchers have tried using traditional AI methods like Deep Learning and Machine Learning to simulate drugs and their performance in the body to rapidly determine if they are good candidates. These methods have fallen short because of inherent issues in these traditional AI approaches. One such issue is that AI treats each part/feature of our body as separate entities, which don’t interact with one another (this is called feature isolation). Of course, this is not true as our entire body is connected and works together.
Everything that I have said up until now is nothing new though. The novel technology that I recently came across was the use of quantum computing to simulate the human body. The reason quantum computing is better for simulations is pretty complex, but the basics of it is that quantum computing uses qubits rather than the 0s and 1s we are used to in classical bits. These qubits have a feature called quantum entanglement, which allows them to connect features, and thus, make better simulations.
As you may expect, this technology is extremely new and largely underdeveloped, but the field of quantum computing and medicine is growing really fast because of how powerful and novel it is, meaning that the technology will only get better.
So what are some ways that you think quantum computing can help us better healthcare in the near or distant future?
Credits to: Tristan Hwang
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