South Middlesex Times

A collaborative effort between a Rutgers researcher and a local high school student has led to the development of a machine learning method to screen existing drugs for potential efficacy in treating addiction-related disorders. The partnership involved Morgan James, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and Vanessa Zhang, a student from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South.

James, who is also a core member of the Rutgers Brain Health Institute and member of the executive board at the Rutgers Addiction Research Center, has been focusing on improving treatments for psychiatric illnesses such as eating disorders, substance use disorders, and depression. His approach is innovative: instead of creating new drugs, he is exploring existing medications to see if they have off-target effects that include blocking the orexin 1 receptor. This receptor regulates various physiological phenomena including wakefulness, feeding and the brain’s reaction to rewards.

Zhang, a champion figure skater with an interest in computer programming who has seen first-hand the impact of eating disorders among her peers, joined forces with James. Together they developed an artificial intelligence method to screen all existing drugs for potential off-target effects at the orexin 1 receptor.

“Vanessa made contact with me through William Welsh, is a professor in the department of pharmacology and a long-time collaborator of mine,” said James. “Vanessa is a very accomplished figure skater so working on this project was a way to combining two of her interests, machine learning and combatting eating disorders."

Zhang explained her motivation for participating in this project: “Eating disorders are a prevalent issue in figure skating,” she said. “As a competitive figure skater, I’ve witnessed the detrimental impact these mental struggles have on skaters’ health and careers."

The team compiled experimental compounds that act on orexin 1 into a database to understand their impact on this receptor. This information was then used to create an algorithm predicting the likelihood of another drug having a similar effect.

“We developed a machine-learning program to determine what features predicted the likelihood of a drug acting at the orexin 1 receptor, and the algorithm did a really good job of doing that,” said James. “We then looked at 1,600 compounds that are FDA approved, so theoretically available to give to humans, and that produced a short list of candidate drugs."

The AI platform and certain candidate drugs discovered during the process have been patented through the Office for Research’s technology transfer department. James and his team will continue their medicinal chemistry study to find drugs with high promise that could potentially be modified to become viable medications focusing on the orexin system.

“The Office for Research’s technology transfer team have been great – they always are,” said James. “They helped us draft and file the provisional application and have been supportive all the way.”

“Working with Dr. James goes hand-in-hand with the Office for Research’s mission to support the research, scholarship, and creative endeavors of all Rutgers faculty,” said Deborah Perez Fernandez, executive director of Technology Transfer.