AIMaR (Combating Antimalarial Resistance: An AI-Driven Approach to Identify and Prioritize Key Parasite Mutations) is a four-year research project funded by Google.org’s AI for Science Fund. The project leverages advanced AI tools to predict the evolutionary trajectories of malaria-causing parasites, enabling earlier identification of drug resistance.
AIMaR focuses on predicting and characterizing mutations across the Plasmodium falciparum proteome that are relevant to malaria epidemiology, while providing insights into their functional consequences. This work integrates malaria genomics, variant effect modeling, AlphaFold’s near experimental accuracy protein structure predictions, and laboratory validation.