Quris-AI to Launch Bio-AI Center for Drug Research in Abu-Dhabi

(Middle East) Drug development AI platform Quris-AI and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) have signed an agreement to develop a world-class bio-AI center of excellence in Abu-Dhabi. The state-of-the-art facility will support the development of personalized medications explicitly tailored to the diverse populations of the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region.

The university provides expertise in developing predictive AI models while incentivizing sought-after AI graduates to stay in the UAE as they begin their careers.

Quris-AI developed the world’s first Bio-AI clinical prediction platform making drug development more efficient. It promises to save hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development costs. With this collaboration, Quris, which operates in Boston and Tel Aviv, is now establishing its subsidiary, Quris-UAE, in Abu Dhabi.

Currently, about 90% of clinical trials for new medications fail. Still, Quris’ proprietary “patient-on-a-chip” technology promises to reduce failure by predicting which drugs are most likely to work in humans. The Quris system rapidly performs test interactions using predictive AI technologies that simulate genetically diverse patients, eliminating the need for animal testing and avoiding the risk and cost associated with failed clinical trials.

“We are delighted to be collaborating with Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi, given its strong commitment to advancing AI and significant opportunities for synergy,” says Isaac Bentwich, M.D., founder and CEO of Quris. “We salute the vision of H.H. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who championed the UAE to become a center of excellence in AI as a strong pillar of the economy. We are honored to contribute to realizing this vision.”

Quris research operations are led by Nobel laureate Professor Aaron Ciechanover and Moderna co-founder and former FDA Science Board Chair, Professor Robert Langer. Former Pfizer CEO Henry McKinnell now chairs the Quris Advisory Board alongside Dr. Kobi Richter, founder of Medinol and Orbotech. The MBZUAI team is led by Professor Eric Xing, MBZUAI President, professor, and co-principal investigator in the Quris-MBZUAI collaboration.

“One compelling aspect of my discussions with Professor Ciechanover and the Quris team has been solving UAE-specific health problems faster and cost-effectively,” Dr. Xing said. “The organelle systems being developed at Quris are a revolutionary platform for high-throughput drug testing, which can be best served by a similarly high-throughput drug design pipeline using AI. Our unique computational biology and machine learning capacities at MBZUAI will enhance Quris’ efforts to accelerate the development of new personalized and potentially life-saving medicines.”

As part of the collaboration, MBZUAI Deputy Department Chair and Associate Professor of Machine Learning Kun Zhang will drive a project titled “ Disrupting Personalized Medicine Using Patient-on-a-Chip and Causal Discovery.” The project, which will draw on both organizations' resources and personnel, will accelerate the discovery of personal, actionable causal effects on drug pharmacokinetics; genetic parameters with causal effects on drug metabolism; functional organ parameters relating to drug metabolism (e.g., liver/kidney/heart functional tests/assays); and ethnic-specific parameters affecting drug metabolism and safety.

The research will also support the development of personalized (patient-specific) drug administration protocol and a patient-on-a-chip method for the causal discovery of patient-specific treatments.