Health · Medical Research · 15 hrs ago
Sydney lab uses AI to identify cancer drug combinations
Professor Fatemeh Vafaee’s lab at the University of NSW in Sydney uses artificial intelligence to support medical research.
It has identified 24 combinations of drugs that may work well together against cancer.
Tests at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre confirmed the combinations in pre-clinical studies, and they are moving to further testing.
Finding useful combinations can be difficult because testing thousands of drugs at different doses could require millions of experiments.
The lab also worked with a commercial partner to develop a blood test to rule out recurrent breast cancer.
Vafaee says AI could help researchers study rare diseases, where less patient data is available.
She says access to large-scale patient data is important for using AI to develop more personalised care.
A Sydney laboratory led by University of NSW professor Fatemeh Vafaee uses AI to identify potential cancer drug combinations.
The lab has selected 24 combinations that were validated in pre-clinical studies at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and are moving to higher levels of testing.
Vafaee said AI can help researchers prioritise combinations for laboratory experiments.
She said large-scale patient data could help extend AI tools to rarer cancers and other diseases.
Earlier in 2026, Vafaee worked with a commercial partner on a blood test to rule out recurrent breast cancer.
- Who
- Professor Fatemeh Vafaee and her University of NSW laboratory.
- What
- The lab uses AI to identify potential drug combinations and has selected 24 that were validated in pre-clinical studies.
- When
- The article was published on October 11, 2026. The lab’s 24 combinations are now going to higher levels of testing.
- Where
- Sydney, with pre-clinical validation at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
- Why
- AI can prioritise possible drug combinations for testing, which could help address diseases where one medication may be insufficient.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
I’ve become very interested in how we can leverage AI to save lives and improve the patient outcomes
We can predict possible combinations of drugs ahead of lab experiments.
Every single patient matters, and we can use this technology for patients that we have less population level data available for.
AI developments and access to large-scale data began enabling scientists to do some work several thousand times faster, Vafaee said.
Vafaee worked with a commercial partner to develop a blood test to rule out recurrent breast cancer.
The lab’s 24 drug combinations had been validated in pre-clinical studies and were going to higher levels of testing.
- Research lead
- Professor Fatemeh Vafaee
- Institution
- University of NSW
- Drug combinations
- 24 selected and validated in pre-clinical studies
- Validation site
- Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne
- Blood test
- Developed with a commercial partner to rule out recurrent breast cancer earlier in 2026
Sources
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