Mendel Launches AI-powered Search Engine to Analyze More Than 50,000 Coronavirus Papers

Researcher using Mendel’s COVID-19 search engine found evidence that hypertension drug Diltiazem may halt virus replication

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mendel, the leader in clinical AI technologies, announced the launch of a new search engine using proprietary AI to absorb more than 50,000 coronavirus research papers and answer questions related to COVID-19. DCM, a global venture capital firm with $4 billion in assets under management, is co-sponsoring this initiative. The search engine is now available for researchers at covid19.mendel.ai.

The search engine parses scholarly articles on coronaviruses made publicly available by the White House. Researchers, epidemiologists and clinicians can now ask questions about COVID-19, gleaning relevant answers in seconds. This is a process that takes humans numerous hours, days, or even weeks to conduct when comparing medical literature. Mendel can answer key questions such as:

• What do we know about potential treatments?
• What do we know about COVID-19 risk factors?
• What has been published about asymptomatic transmission?
• What do we know about the different virus strains?

Existing technology, such as Information Retrieval (IR) and out-of-the-box Natural Language Processing toolkits, fails to accurately unpack the complex clinical knowledge contained in medical literature. From its inception, Mendel created an AI engine that prioritizes medicine above term identification. For example, the search engine is trained to be asked highly specific questions, like, “What are the modes of transmission of a virus?” and recognize “no intrauterine infections have been recorded” as a relevant answer.

This can help researchers better understand the virology of SARS- CoV-2 as well as the outcome of different drugs and treatment approaches. In fact, a researcher using Mendel’s COVID-19 search engine found evidence that Diltiazem, a drug used for hypertension, has proven effective in halting virus replication. While this isn’t widely known among the scientific community today, the evidence is available in the literature.

“The speed of our technology in absorbing clinical knowledge isn’t what excites me; it’s knowing we can help uncover findings that can be missed by humans and ultimately, save lives,” said Wael Salloum PhD, co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Mendel. “The next step for us is to ingest the electronic medical records (EMR) data of COVID-19 patients to corroborate these findings faster and with greater accuracy by absorbing the real-world clinical data and running In-Silico Trials.”

“Mendel is codifying the human knowledge of coronaviruses and making it widely available to the scientific community,” said Kyle Lui, Partner at DCM. “We are proud to co-sponsor this project, and are excited about its potential to find solutions against the spread of COVID-19.”

Mendel’s technology is being deployed at many prominent healthcare providers across the United States, including academic and community oncology clinics and hospitals such as Adventist Health’s Martin-O'Neil Cancer Center (MOCC), Mercy Cancer Center and the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Cancer Care, among others. Mendel is looking for partners who can accelerate the use of its technology to find effective solutions for COVID-19. Interested parties can reach out at [e-mail].

About Mendel

Mendel is a machine that can read and understand medicine. Mendel Health is a for-profit corporation headquartered in San Jose, California that uses novel AI technology to absorb clinical data in medical literature as well as patient health records, in order to suggest evidence-based treatment options and unlock a variety of other Real World Data applications. Please visit www.mendel.ai for more information.

About DCM

DCM is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Beijing, and Tokyo with over $4 billion under management. DCM has invested in more than 400 early-stage technology companies globally, and provides hands-on operational guidance and a global network of business and financial resources. DCM has backed industry leading companies including Careem (Uber), Bill.com, Sansan, Freee, Life360, Musical.ly (TikTok), Fortinet, Sling Media, Wrike, 51job, 58.com, BitAuto, Dangdang, Happy Elements, Houchebang (ManBang), Kakao Talk, TanTan, Tuniu, Vipshop, UCloud and Uxin. DCM has also invested in exciting, rising startups such as FuboTV, Hims, Lime, Plenty, SoFi, Kuaishou, Maimai and Pony.ai. For more information, visit www.dcm.com.