Artificial intelligence in herbal medicine and drug discovery

Background and aims: Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role in different fields of medicineand healthcare. Persian medicine takes the center stage in healthcare system of Iran. Treatmentin Persian Medicine is mainly based on herbal drugs and preparations. There is large datasetin Persian manuscripts and growing number of scientific research to verify using typical medicinalplants in special ailments. AI could be used to categorize and analyze those large amount ofinformation for extraction and interpretation of information.Methods: this is a review manuscript containing data regarding application of AI in herbal medicine.Clustering algorithms could be a data analyzing technique to automatically recognize thepattern between the patient’s symptoms and the proper herbal preparation selection. These networkscould be designed based on integration of clinical practice, patient’s outcomes and theselected herbal medicine. This could be helpful especially when there is neither any therapeuticpattern nor clear evidence for herbal therapies in special ailments.Results: Using AI could be an unprecedented step to reduce superfluous trials and to decreasetime to acquire data. It could assist in selection of tailored herbal medicine according to patient’sgenetics, physiological, pathological characteristics, and temperament which can efficiently leadto apply personalized medicine. AI could assist in acquiring prediction power to conduct more efficienttrails, to use whether a single herbal drug, or the combination of herbal medicine for complexdisease such as cancer or MS. AI could gather information from datasets to gain networks ofpotential interactions between phytochemicals, proteins, genes, and organs.Conclusion: AI is a practical tool to predict molecular activity of natural compounds in the bodywhich paves the way for drug discovery with consuming much less time and money.