Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of the complex relationships between plants and health. By leveraging AI and machine learning advances, scientists can identify the compounds in plants that may have the greatest potential to support health.
For example, Brightseed, a California-based startup, recently landed US$68 million to use AI to accelerate their exploration of plant compounds and their potential health effects.
In this article, we’ll discuss AI’s role in this space.
What is AI?
AI, or artificial intelligence, is the ability of a computer program or machine to think and learn. It is an interdisciplinary field combining computer science, biology, psychology, mathematics and engineering elements to create intelligent systems that combine data with decision-making capabilities. AI has become increasingly important in recent years as advances in computing power have enabled machines to process large amounts of data quickly and accurately.
AI has become especially relevant as researchers attempt to identify plant compounds with potential health benefits. Using AI systems enables researchers to rapidly generate hypotheses about active ingredients and analyze large datasets. This lets them identify plant compounds with therapeutic benefits without first performing long and expensive lab trials. AI can also differentiate between various grades of medicinal plants, making the selection process more efficient and cost-effective. In addition, using AI makes predictions more reliable since it avoids human bias in favor of objective analyses based on scientific evidence free from emotion or preconceived opinion.
What is Brightseed?
Brightseed is an AI-powered data platform designed to help identify potential new uses from natural sources for plant compounds. This technology examines both historic and current scientific literature, searches for trends, and identifies compounds that have the potential to benefit your health.
By leveraging our proprietary Machine Translation and Natural Language Processing frameworks, Brightseed can quickly assess which plant compounds may benefit human health. From there, Brightseed’s team of experts can help further explore specific compounds and formulate more targeted uses.
By focusing on natural sources such as plants, Brightseed has created a unique platform that helps uncover valuable insights not just from traditional sources but also from novel research that could be the cornerstone of critical discoveries in human health. As a result, Brightseed is well-positioned to lead the charge in bringing important plant compounds forth for future development and exploration as we continue to learn more about the incredible benefits of plant-based ingredients.
AI and Plant Compounds
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been playing an increasingly important role in exploring plant compounds and their potential health benefits, with the technology driving advancements in plant exploration, analysis and understanding.
Brightseed, which uses AI to uncover plant compounds with potential health benefits, recently secured US$68M to accelerate their exploration of these compounds and their impact on human health.
This article will discuss AI’s role in exploring plant compounds and their potential health benefits.
How AI is being used to identify plant compounds
AI and machine learning are revolutionizing how plant compounds are identified and categorized for potential health benefits. Scientists have used various techniques over the years to characterize the chemical constituents of a plant and their associated pharmacology profiles. Still, AI has opened up an array of new possibilities.
AI can now search large datasets to find meaningful patterns and correlations between plant compounds, genes, proteins, or diseases. This ultimately leads to faster discovery of novel compounds with potential health benefits not previously known or characterized. A key area is working on active compounds – those that interact with cells in useful ways or that work in synergy with other compounds, commonly referred to as Synergic Molecular Networks (SMN).
The major advantage of AI-driven approaches is that they can more accurately predict how small molecules interact and how these interactions contribute to overall metabolic pathways. In addition, by leveraging data from large databases such as medicinal chemistry databases like PubChem and computing power from specialized algorithms, chemists can grow the set of possible candidates for drug discovery much faster using AI than traditional approaches.
Benefits of using AI in this area
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly deep learning, are starting to transform the field of plant chemistry. For example, AI has the potential to identify active compounds in plants that could offer a range of health benefits. This could open up a world of possibilities for developing new treatments, drugs and supplements targeting specific ailments.
AI in this area could revolutionize how compounds are identified in plants and make discoveries faster, easier, and more accurate than ever before. It can also drastically reduce human bias when producing initial results, as machine learning algorithms follow specified instructions leaving little room for personal opinion or interpretation. Additionally, AI can independently analyze large datasets quickly and easily detect patterns or correlations that may not be obvious to the naked eye.
A direct application would be its ability to compare past data on plant component structure against current information gathered from experimental tests to potentially identify novel functional ingredients for therapeutic use with minimum risk or side effects. For example, indentifying natural compounds with anti-cancerous properties without disrupting other physiological processes in the body. Such breakthroughs will potentially lead to safer drug treatments and formulation, saving time, money and resources all while creating an enriched consumer experience through products that better meet their needs.
Brightseed lands US$68M to accelerate AI-powered exploration of plant compounds’ health impact
Brightseed, a start-up that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify plant compounds with potential health benefits, recently raised $68 million in funding to accelerate the development of its AI-powered exploration of plant compounds’ health impact.
In this article, we will discuss the implications of Brightseed’s latest funding and how it can be used to power its scientific exploration of plant compounds.
Details of the US$68M funding
In November 2020, Brightseed’s co-founder, Antony Smith, announced the closing of a US$68 million Series B funding round. This round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and joined by global investors Mango Capital, Kindred Partners, and Sam Lessin from Slow Ventures.
Brightseed has raised a total of US$86 million to date — a significant amount for an AI-focused startup and the latest proof that AI’s potential for discovering novel compounds is appealing to investors. With the new investment, Brightseed will develop its predictive technology to discover compounds with potential health benefits and biopharmaceuticals derived from plants for human use.
The funding will also allow Brightseed to build out its team of Plant Science Researchers, Machine Learning Engineers and Software Engineers and boost investments into research partnerships with universities and non-profit organizations. In addition, Brightseed plans to scale its mySuperfoods platform to provide customers with personal nutrition insights while leveraging its proprietary data set of natural foods.
What the funding will be used for
The funds raised by Brightseed during this round of funding will be used to further drive the growth of its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, strengthen its research, and build on its success in applying quantitative AI models to uncover new plants and plant-based compounds with potential health benefits. In addition, the company plans to use the funds to expand their AI models and proprietary data sets, invest in better product development, cultivate new partners and collaborations, and increase Brightseed’s portfolio of discoveries from over 430 phytonutrients to over 1,000.
Brightseed’s scientific team will also use the additional capital to deepen their understanding of biological mechanisms related to phytonutrients; strengthen computational approaches; and further optimize their partners’ production capabilities/cost structure when it comes to scaling up natural ingredients. Additionally, Brightseed plans on leveraging the new resources to continue building out its biosafety validation capabilities, which involves several assays conducted at three levels — molecular characterization, cell line assays, and animal studies. With these efforts bolstered by the latest funding round, Brightseed is a step closer toward pioneering a fundamentally novel approach for eliminating chronic diseases like obesity-related disease or cardiovascular disease.
Potential Health Benefits
In recent years, the potential health benefits of plant compounds have become increasingly evident from an Artificial Intelligence (AI) point of view.
Brightseed, a San Francisco-based biotech firm, recently closed an US$68M Series B round to further explore the use of AI in identifying plant compounds with potential health benefits.
This article will discuss the role of AI in this field, and the potential health benefits of plant compounds.
Potential health benefits of identified plant compounds
The potential health benefits of compounds and phytochemicals identified using artificial intelligence (AI) technology include preventing and treating certain health conditions. In addition, AI has the potential to identify previously unknown compounds in a wide range of plants from around the world and even unlock new therapeutic possibilities for the future.
In terms of preventative care, such plant-derived compounds could reduce inflammation, improve heart health, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure and modulate glucose levels in people with diabetes or prediabetes. Furthermore, plant-based dietary or supplement interventions have been shown to reduce cancer risk by modulating cellular processes implicated in tumor development.
Additionally, these AI-identified compounds have been connected with anti-aging effects like improved skin tone and texture and increased energy levels due to improved physical performance and mental alertness. These compounds may also play a role in overall cognitive health by helping to protect against age-related cognitive decline, dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.
Finally, AI-assisted discovery of previously unknown plant compounds may provide exciting new drug research and development opportunities. These potential pharmaceutical applications are still largely abstract but promise promising advances for treating major diseases like cancer and diabetes that could transform healthcare worldwide.
Examples of identified plant compounds
AI algorithms have proved to be highly successful at identifying plant compounds with potential health benefits. Examples of plant compounds that AI algorithms have identified include bioactive antioxidents, antimicrobial compounds, and phytochemicals for treating metabolic disease.
Bioactive antioxidents are thought to play a key role in overall health, protecting against chronic illnesses. Antimicrobial compounds can help protect against microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses that lead to infection or spread of disease. In addition, phytochemicals are naturally occurring plant-based molecules with potential therapeutic use in treating metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.
In addition to helping identify these potential therapeutic compounds from plants, AI algorithms have been used to investigate their mechanisms of action and optimize them against human targets. Researchers can further accelerate the drug discovery process by combining AI with other technologies such as big data analytics and deep learning.
Conclusion
In conclusion, using AI to identify plant compounds with potential health benefits is an exciting development in searching for new therapeutic treatments and supplements for a wide range of ailments.
AI-driven exploration of natural compounds helps to speed up the process of identifying novel compounds and can offer unprecedented insight into the vast landscape of potential compounds that could improve patient health.
Summary of Brightseed’s funding
Brightseed has seen exponential growth since its founding in 2017, with a series A funding round in 2018 leading to $3.75 million in investments. In addition, Brightseed raised $10.3 million in its latest series B funding round in 2020. This additional capital has allowed Brightseed to expand its operations, hire new personnel and develop its artificial intelligence platform to help identify plant compounds with promising health benefits.
The underlying technology at the heart of Brightseed’s processes is artificial intelligence, harnessing machine learning and big data analysis of natural compounds from thousands of plant species worldwide. Artificial neural networks allow computers to ‘think’ like humans and identify patterns in vast quantities of data without being manually programmed or directed – at scale. This technology helps Brightseed analyze complex datasets, generate insights beyond what is currently possible for direct comparison and find potential remedies for chronic diseases or nutrition-related issues that traditional methods may have overlooked.
Overall, Brightseed’s successful funding rounds demonstrate the potential of combining artificial intelligence with natural ingredients research and development – a field which will become increasingly vital as current alternative health treatments continue to be studied more thoroughly and commercialized for widespread use.
Summary of potential health benefits of identified plant compounds
Through the use of artificial intelligence, scientists have been able to identify compounds in plants with potential health benefits. The identified compounds include antioxidant and antitumor properties which could be beneficial for preventing oxidative stress-related diseases, metabolic diseases such as diabetes, and cancer.
In addition, AI advances may also help identify novel plant compounds that can aid in digestive health, such as prebiotics and probiotics. Plant based compounds can also help lower cholesterol levels and the risk of cardiovascular disease by managing cholesterol metabolism. Furthermore, AI can help detect substances found in plants that would help treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.
AI technology is paving the way for more successful identification of plant compounds with potential health benefits. This will lead to better treatments for existing conditions and prevention of future ones that could arise due to poor nutrition or environmental exposures. With further development of this field through AI applications it is likely we can look forward to future treatment options that make use of these natural sources for better human health outcomes.
tags = Brightseed, US$68M, AI-powered exploration of plant compounds, FDA-GRAS, forager 68m temasekcoldeweytechcrunch, Health-forward food brand, Forager
