Drug development remains a critical issue in the field of biomedicine. With the rapid advancement of information technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the advent of the big data era, AI-assisted drug development has become a new trend, particularly in predicting drug-target associations. To address the challenge of drug-target prediction, AI-driven models have emerged as powerful tools, offering innovative solutions by effectively extracting features from complex biological data, accurately modeling molecular interactions, and precisely predicting potential drug-target outcomes. Traditional machine learning (ML), network-based, and advanced deep learning architectures such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs), graph convolutional networks (GCNs), and transformers play a pivotal role. This review systematically compiles and evaluates AI algorithms for drug- and drug combination-target predictions, highlighting their theoretical frameworks, strengths, and limitations. CNNs effectively identify spatial patterns and molecular features critical for drug-target interactions. GCNs provide deep insights into molecular interactions via relational data, whereas transformers increase prediction accuracy by capturing complex dependencies within biological sequences. Network-based models offer a systematic perspective by integrating diverse data sources, and traditional ML efficiently handles large datasets to improve overall predictive accuracy. Collectively, these AI-driven methods are transforming drug-target predictions and advancing the development of personalized therapy. This review summarizes the application of AI in drug development, particularly in drug-target prediction, and offers recommendations on models and algorithms for researchers engaged in biomedical research. It also provides typical cases to better illustrate how AI can further accelerate development in the fields of biomedicine and drug discovery.

Objective: Cynanchum stauntonii and Cynanchum glaucescens are botanical species of Baiqian (Cynanchi Stauntonii Rhizoma et Radix) in Chinese Pharmacopoeia, in which, however, there are no microscopic identification. Therefore, we provided the morphological and microscopic identification of the crude drug for updating Chinese Pharmacopoeia. Methods: Twelve batches of C. stauntonii and three batches of C. glaucescens and their crude drugs were taxonomically, morphologically, and microscopically examined. Results: Taxonomically, C. stauntonii had narrowly lanceolate leaves with acuminate apex and 5mm long petiole; Whereas C. glaucescens was oblong-lanceolate or oblong with rounded or acute apex in leaves, and had very short or no petiole. Morphologically, rhizomes of C. stauntonii and C. glaucescens both had hollow pith, but the hollow pith occupied about a half of the rhizome's diameter in C. stauntonii, whereas only a very small proportion of the overall diameter in C. glaucescens. Moreover, microscopic observation showed the difference in the proportion of xylem and in rhizome transverse-sections of the two species along with the difference in the size of the pith. Finally, laticifers and rhizome epidermal secretory cells were present in the powders of C. stauntonii, but absent from C. glaucescens. Conclusion: Based on observation of morphological and microscopic characteristics, the two species can be distinguished by the size of the pith, proportion of xylem of rhizomes, and crude drug powder characters such as laticifers and secretory cells.