Scientists Found a New Antibiotic by Using AI

Using a unique machine-learning algorithm, some of the MIT researchers have recently identified a powerful and useful new antibiotic compound. In few of the laboratory tests, the drug has been seen to be able to kill many of the world's most deadly and problematic diseases-causing bacteria, which include some strains that are also resistant to all known antibiotics. It has also cleared infections in the two different mouse models.
The computer model, which can be seen screen more than a hundred million chemical compounds in a matter of days, is designed to pick out potential antibiotics that kill bacteria using different mechanisms than those of existing drugs.
"We wanted to develop a platform that would allow us to harness the power of artificial intelligence to usher in a new age of antibiotic drug discovery," says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering. "Our approach revealed this amazing molecule which is arguably one of the more powerful antibiotics that has been discovered."
In their new study, the researchers also identified several other promising antibiotic candidates, which they plan to test further. They believe the model could also be used to design new drugs, based on what it has learned about chemical structures that enable drugs to kill bacteria.

By: Prerana Sharma