New Delhi

Whatcauses cancer? Researchers at Delhi’s Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology may have moved a step towards answering that all important question through an AI platform that helps decode DNA damage and what may have led to the malignancy.

'MutAIverse' is the first of its kind generative AI platform anywhere in the world, the researchers said. It was tested on 27 people suffering from head and neck cancer in Guwahati, Assam, and went to the root to trace the exposure that possibly contributed to the disease -- chewing smokeless tobacco.

Though AI adds a layer of information in understanding cancer development, it does not in its current form conclusively prove that DNA damage due to the exposure caused the cancer, cautioned experts. The researchers include those from Guwahati’s National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB).

Their research focuses attention on the causative factors rather than just the diagnosis and can be a useful screening tool, the study authors said.

"Nobody talks about what caused the cancer. What were you exposed to? Were you exposed to pollution? Were you exposed to contaminated water? Or were you exposed to cigarettes? Nobody tells you," lead author Gaurav Ahuja, associate professor at the department of computational biology, IIIT, told media.

The environment we live in continuously exposes us to multiple chemicals, which can induce mutations in the DNA, he explained.

"In my point of view, the study is a step forward when people are talking not about the fact that one got cancer, but in a way that they can identify what they were exposed to, so that family members can be protected, if the exposure is prevalent in the locality they live in," Ahuja said. The genAI platform also helped expand existing reference libraries of DNA adducts -- toxic chemicals that can attach to and cause changes to one's DNA, potentially causing cancer -- from fewer than 400 to over three lakh.