# SCIENCE NERDS INVENT WAY TO DRUG CELLS RANDOMLY, CALL IT “GENIUS”
In a breakthrough that absolutely no one was waiting for, MIT researchers have developed a new framework for studying treatment interactions that basically amounts to “let’s throw sh!t at the wall and see what sticks, but like, scientifically.”
DRUGS: NOW WITH MORE MATH!
Instead of methodically testing drug combinations like normal people, these lab-coat-wearing revolutionaries decided that randomly assigning treatments based on “dosage probabilities” was the way to go. Because why be systematic when you can just be f@#king chaotic?
“We’ve introduced a concept people can think more about,” said Jiaqi Zhang, apparently unaware that most people would rather think about literally anything else. “Our hope is this can someday be used to solve biologically relevant questions,” she added, presumably while ignoring the biologically relevant question of why anyone would care.
THE GAMBLING APPROACH TO MEDICINE
The genius breakthrough essentially boils down to treating cells like tiny casino patrons. Rather than selecting specific treatment combinations, scientists now assign “dosage levels” that determine the probability of each cell receiving a particular treatment cocktail.
“It’s like telling your bartender to surprise you, but for cancer research,” explained Dr. Hugh R. Kidding, a fictional expert we made up because the real ones weren’t entertaining enough. “We’re basically playing roulette with pharmaceuticals, but we’ve got math to back it up, so it’s totally legit.”
CELLS RESPOND: “PLEASE STOP EXPERIMENTING ON US”
The researchers claim their approach is less biased because it doesn’t restrict experiments to predetermined treatment combinations. According to our completely fabricated poll, 97.3% of cells disagree, calling the method “exhausting” and “frankly, a bit rude.”
“From there, the question is how do we design the dosages so that we can estimate the outcomes as accurately as possible? This is where our theory comes in,” said undergraduate Divya Shyamal, demonstrating the remarkable ability of MIT students to make simple concepts sound impossibly complex.
MULTI-ROUND EXPERIMENTS: BECAUSE BEING WRONG ONCE ISN’T ENOUGH
After each round of experiments, the results are fed back into the system to determine the ideal dosage strategy for the next round. Professor I.M. Skeptical, who exists entirely in our imagination, described this as “essentially admitting you have no idea what you’re doing, but with extra steps.”
The researchers proved their approach generates “optimal dosages,” a claim verified by absolutely no one outside their laboratory.
SCIENTISTS SHOCKED TO DISCOVER THEIR OWN METHOD WORKS BEST
In what might be the least surprising result in scientific history, the researchers’ simulations showed their own method outperformed two baseline methods they themselves selected.
“We’re absolutely stunned that the method we created specifically to be better than existing methods turned out to be better than existing methods,” said no one explicitly, but everyone implied.
The research was funded by an alphabet soup of organizations including NIH, DOE, Apple (because why the f@#k not?), and “a Simons Investigator Award,” which we assume is given to the scientist who can make the simplest concept sound the most complicated.
The researchers plan to “enhance their experimental framework” in the future, which is academic-speak for “we’re not done confusing people yet.” Meanwhile, 99% of cells continue to pray for scientists to just leave them the hell alone.
