Joel Kowalewski

Joel Kowalewski

San Diego, California, United States
1K followers 500+ connections

About

A computational neuroscientist by training, with expertise in molecular biology…

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Publications

  • A systems-wide understanding of the human olfactory percept space

    Chemical Senses/Oxford University Press

    AI/machine learning for predicting the scent of chemicals.

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  • Predicting Human Olfactory Perception from Activities of Odorant Receptors

    iScience/CellPress

    Machine learning is used to learn a minimal set of chemical patterns for activating different human odorant receptors. Models simulate odor processing and perception for test chemicals--that is, chemicals that were not used to train (or "teach") the algorithms. These predictions were accurate, particularly relative to other approaches.

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  • Predicting novel drugs for SARS-CoV-2 using machine learning from a >10 million chemical space

    Heliyon/CellPress

    65 human proteins that interact/bind SARS-CoV2 viral proteins are analyzed as therapeutic targets. This entails developing machine learning models to predict activity on each of the human proteins; the chemicals with activity would then potentially disrupt interactions with the virus (e.g. SARS-CoV2 docking with the human ACE2 receptor). Here, 100,000+ chemicals registered by the FDA and ~100,000 drugs approved for treating other conditions are ranked according to their therapeutic potential…

    65 human proteins that interact/bind SARS-CoV2 viral proteins are analyzed as therapeutic targets. This entails developing machine learning models to predict activity on each of the human proteins; the chemicals with activity would then potentially disrupt interactions with the virus (e.g. SARS-CoV2 docking with the human ACE2 receptor). Here, 100,000+ chemicals registered by the FDA and ~100,000 drugs approved for treating other conditions are ranked according to their therapeutic potential for Covid-19 through machine learning. This is followed by searching 10+ million chemicals that lack known therapeutic applications, which serves the goal of long-term research into treatments for Covid-19, related diseases, or those that are associated with the 65 human proteins studied here.

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  • Prolonged activation of carbon dioxide-sensitive neurons in mosquitoes

    Interface Focus 20200043/The Royal Society

    Application of machine learning and chemical informatics to discover the physicochemical basis of different cpA neuron activation/inhibition patterns; the cpA neuron is part of a key pathway in mosquitoes for detecting hosts through CO2. The study outlines the development of predictive models to find new repellent chemicals that target this detection mechanism, offering new possibilities for limiting the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses.

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  • Signaling Mode of the Broad-Spectrum Conserved CO2 Receptor Is One of the Important Determinants of Odor Valence in Drosophila

    Neuron

    Cover article

    Describes sensory responses from the conserved CO2-detecting neuron in flies and mosquitoes. Carbon dioxide detection (CO2) plays a role in insect navigation as its presence is tied to resources in the environment. As such, agricultural pests and mosquitoes are tied to human health and disease in important ways. This navigation behavior nevertheless appears predictable when monitoring neural activity in live insects, as shown in the paper; in addition, certain neural…

    Cover article

    Describes sensory responses from the conserved CO2-detecting neuron in flies and mosquitoes. Carbon dioxide detection (CO2) plays a role in insect navigation as its presence is tied to resources in the environment. As such, agricultural pests and mosquitoes are tied to human health and disease in important ways. This navigation behavior nevertheless appears predictable when monitoring neural activity in live insects, as shown in the paper; in addition, certain neural pathways are strongly associated with navigation behavior. Machine learning can help discover chemicals that selectively target these pathways. Formulations containing these active ingredients could be sprays for crop fields or lotions for topical application to human skin (pets or farm animals).

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  • Olfactory ERPs in an odor/visual congruency task differentiate ApoE ε4 carriers from non-carriers

    Brain Research

    Odor processing is affected very early in the development of Alzheimer's, far sooner and more subtle than the cognitive and memory impairments that traditionally lead to diagnosis. By using a computer-controlled odor delivery device, it's possible to precisely monitor brain responses to odorant molecules. Here, the brain data is being used to create statistical models that predict (diagnose) abnormalities in individuals with genetic risk for Alzheimer's. Interestingly, differences in brain…

    Odor processing is affected very early in the development of Alzheimer's, far sooner and more subtle than the cognitive and memory impairments that traditionally lead to diagnosis. By using a computer-controlled odor delivery device, it's possible to precisely monitor brain responses to odorant molecules. Here, the brain data is being used to create statistical models that predict (diagnose) abnormalities in individuals with genetic risk for Alzheimer's. Interestingly, differences in brain responses appear in young individuals, years before the risk comes into play. Long-term study of these abnormalities (or, simply, differences detected in the brain) may help identify subtle changes that directly predict the traditional symptoms or, alternatively, why others with genetic risk never develop the disease. One thought is that early (pre-clinical) diagnosis may improve treatment success, as treatment success has been marginal once the memory/cognitive symptoms arise.

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