A new combination (Engineers will use AI to improve nanomedicine manufacturing) of intelligence and manufacturing processes could change the future of nanomedicine, Cornell researchers are using a new $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation to change how polymer nanoparticles are produced.
Polymer nanoparticles have become a powerful tool that delivers medicine to the right place, at the right time, in the human body, and it is used through the complexities of manufacturing. Rong Yang, an assistant professor in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the principal investigator of the grant, said,
“It can take decades for a company to design a molecular food system and make it repeatable on a regular basis. many are great.” “There’s a barrier between lab collection and industrial production, and that’s what we’re trying to fix.”
Yang and his colleagues will use AI (Engineers will use AI to improve nanomedicine manufacturing) to analyze and direct the production of polymer nanoparticles in real time. As the nanoparticles are combined in a vapor deposition (iCVD) system, researchers will deposit liquid crystals that leave an “optical fingerprint” that can be read by computer vision. The resulting data will be used to train a convolutional neural network to identify information about polymer nanoparticles and use it to make real-time, automated decisions during the assembly process. “We’re going to use liquid crystal as a solvent and as a screen, the same type you might see on your TV screen,” Yang said.
“We can use them to combine properties, such as molecular weight, size, and morphology of polymer nanoparticles, and tie it to the optical output that we read through AI.”
Co-principal investigator Nicholas Abbott, a Tisch University professor at the Smith School, brings his expertise in water crystals to the research, while technical and intellectual expertise will come from Fengqi You’s principal investigator, Roxanne E. and the Michael J. Zak Professor of Energy Systems Engineering.
If successful, the research will not only introduce new manufacturing methods targeting cyberspace, but will eventually change the way polymer nanoparticles can be made in nanomedicine, according to Yang.
“Suppose everyone takes a slightly different dose of medicine, which is done on-site to get a personalized medicine,” Yang said, adding that this kind of manufacturing could also change the production of products. others contain polymers. , such as building materials. “The quick definition and feedback in the design process can open up all these opportunities that weren’t there before.