COPD is among the deadliest diseases in the world. About 213 million people are affected globally, and roughly 3.7 million die from it each year. The WHO expects it to be among the three leading causes of death worldwide by 2030. Every approved therapy today manages symptoms while the disease continues to progress. None stops it, and none restores what has been lost.

The scientific foundation of the program is the work of Yildirim’s group, which decoded a key molecular pathway driving lung destruction in COPD. In mouse models, engaging this pathway regenerated lung tissue even under continued exposure to cigarette smoke. The biological route to an innovative curative COPD therapy is therefore established.

Khumbu and Helmholtz Munich will now join forces to co‑develop drug candidates that effectively target this pathway. Khumbu takes over the full molecular design, developing novel drug candidates from scratch with its World Model for Molecular Biology. Yildirim’s lab evaluates the selected compounds in its advanced disease models, closing a tight loop between computational design and biological validation.

If successful, the program would represent a turning point in the treatment of COPD.

Der Beitrag Khumbu and Helmholtz Munich start joint program on COPD erschien zuerst auf Khumbu.ai.

Run by SPRIND, the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, the Funke is the first competition in its Next Frontier AI Initiative. It backs disruptive approaches to frontier AI, new architectures and paradigms, not incremental gains on top of existing models. An external jury of internationally recognized experts selected the finalists on the strength of their idea, vision, and demonstrated ability to build over the preceding months.

A new paradigm for drug discovery is precisely what we at Khumbu are building with the World Model for Molecular Biology: a fundamentally new AI, grounded in physics, that understands and simulates the molecular world, to transform how humanity discovers medicine. Read more in our manifesto.

Der Beitrag Khumbu selected as finalist in SPRIND’s Next Frontier AI Concepts erschien zuerst auf Khumbu.ai.