Doctors told him he was going to die. Then AI saved his life
Scientists are using machine learning to find new treatments among thousands of old medicines.
Dr David Fajgenbaum (left) with Joseph Coates, whose rare disease was successfully treated by a drug regimen suggested by artificial intelligence. The New York Times
A little over a year ago, Joseph Coates was told there was only one thing left to decide. Did he want to die at home, or in the hospital?
Coates, then 37 and living in Renton, Washington, was barely conscious. For months, he had been battling a rare blood disorder called POEMS syndrome, which had left him with numb hands and feet, an enlarged heart and failing kidneys. Every few days, doctors needed to drain litres of fluid from his abdomen. He became too sick to receive a stem cell transplant – one of the only treatments that could have put him into remission.
