Can learn how life works, it could help us live longer, healthier lives - AOL

A commentary argues that AI could meaningfully change medicine, despite understandable uncertainty around its use in healthcare. It says AI already supports diagnostic screening and accelerates drug discovery, but its “next frontier” is using AI to learn from biology and nature—understanding what keeps people healthy, what causes diseases to start and progress, and why treatments produce different outcomes for similar diagnoses. The piece cites chronic disease and ageing in England, noting long-term conditions account for about 70% of health and social care spending. It highlights examples including machine-learning analysis of blood plasma proteins from 48,000 UK Biobank participants to predict lung cancer risk more than five years early, and using images from patient-derived stem cells to predict Parkinson’s subtypes. The author says progress will depend on integrating AI into experimental science, supported by UK research ecosystems and health datasets.