Fighting osteoporosis before it starts

Discover the signs of this exhausted disease with artificial intelligence before any bones begin to break

Melissa Formuza is an expert in osteoporosis at the University of Malta, Mida. She shares the story of Alfafold.

Currently, medicine depends on radiography techniques to diagnose osteoporosis. It can be a delusional disease that develops slowly over the course of several years, weakens the bones and makes it dangerously fragile. These diagnostic radiological tools have their own restrictions, as they only discover osteoporosis as soon as they are already developed. This means that it is too late to properly control it.

People tend to think of bones as unchanging, but this is wrong. In fact, they are very active organs, made of connective tissue reinforced with calcium and unique bone cells, with most of them contain the bone marrow in which blood cells are made. Bone tissue is constantly renovated throughout our lives, as these specialized cells absorb old tissues and put new tissues. These operations work alongside to keep a healthy and strong skeleton.

The complex nature of the bone means that there are many different mechanisms through which osteoporosis can develop. Injuries caused by osteoporosis can be very painful and often a question, in order to require permanent care in the hospital in some cases, if someone breaks his back for example.

The disease affects an overwhelming majority on older women: one in three women over 50 years of age with osteoporosis is diagnosed, while one in five men in the same age group will suffer from osteoporosis. The research is often ignored in how the disease development in some people is ignored but not in others through scientific research – but it is increasingly clear that osteoporosis has an important genetic component.

Take the Wnt1 gene, which is active in bone cells, the cells that create bones. The mutations in this gene are disrupted by the process of building bones, which means that people who suffer from this genetic mutation have fragile bones and suffer from osteoporosis early. Such results are important in proving that osteoporosis was not – and it could no longer be considered – a disease that only affects the elderly.

However, fracture often is the first indication of osteoporosis. What we need is to find vital indicators – blood, gene, or protein test that we can search for in those who suffer from their sedative, or at a high risk of osteoporosis. We need to help people start fighting the disease before it begins.

To help us do this, we used alphafold in an attempt to fully understand the genetic reasons. We quickly realized that this could revolutionize treatment if we use it to develop personal medicine. In this case, a model capable of providing preventive and treatment strategies specially designed for specific groups of individuals.

Someone suffers from the disease can have a genome sequence. This genetic analysis would give us a better idea if this person is at risk of fracture in the near future, decisively, allowing preventive measures. It can also help us to understand the development of the disease, and patients are allowed more control of determining the best intervention for them. Ultimately, the goal is to manage osteoporosis from the closest possible stage, prevent progress, fractures, pain and the delusion they bring.

When we enter the amino acid sequence in the alphafold program, it creates a three -dimensional image of the protein structure and allows us to compare the encoded protein structures by both natural and loving genes. With Alphafold, we can imagine the effect of specific genetic mutations, some of which may only cause precise structural changes. Others stimulate significant distortions on protein, which reduces its ability to work properly, and contribute to the disease.

In the end, we aim to develop simple blood tests for young people to help predict the disease, and to find new genes and proteins associated with the disease so that we can develop better drugs to treat it. Early detection and personal medicine can mean that osteoporosis can be managed more effectively. Millions of lives can be greatly improved.

This type of artificial intelligence has become essential in our work and will be necessary for future researchers in this field. We finally have a chance to get one step from this exhausted disease – this is invaluable.