On Thursday, September 26th, the College of Pharmacy at Gulf Medical University hosted a research seminar delivered by Dr. Rema M. Amawi, Biology & Chemistry Coordinator and Assistant Professor at the Science, Math & Sciences Department, Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai (RIT-Dubai).
The seminar, attended by faculty members from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and students from the Master’s in Drug Discovery and Development, was titled: “A Machine Learning Approach to Evaluating the Impact of Natural Oils on Alzheimer’s.”
Dr. Rema, who has held various academic positions at Baylor University (USA), American University of Sharjah, and Batterjee Medical College for Sciences and Technology (KSA), shared her research expertise, which revolves around the expected efficacy of medicines based on pill color and emotional associations, as well as the application of technological tools to study the effects of natural oils on disease progression.
During her presentation, Dr. Rema introduced key machine learning concepts, detailing data augmentation techniques used to generate synthetic data that mirror real data by learning their characteristics. She explained how Principal Component Analysis (PCA) can enhance prediction accuracy and optimize data dimensionality. Additionally, Dr. Rema elaborated on the application of the three fundamental machine learning models: k-nearest Neighbors (kNN), Logistic Regression, and Random Forest, along with Testing and LOOCV validation techniques, in her research.
The session concluded with a thorough discussion on the growing role of machine learning in drug discovery and development, highlighting how this evolving field opens new possibilities for innovative applications in the pharmaceutical sciences.