• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Powerful Antibiotics That Kill Superbugs Are Being Found By AI

March 4, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

Artificial intelligence (AI) has proved to be a useful ally in the battle against antibiotic resistance. A powerful antibiotic that’s even able to kill superbugs has been discovered thanks to a machine-learning algorithm. 

Researchers from MIT used a specially designed computer algorithm to sift through a vast digital archive of over 100 million chemical compounds and spot those that were able to kill bacteria using different mechanisms from existing drugs. 

Advertisement

Reported in the journal Cell in February 2020, this method highlighted a molecule that appeared to possess some truly remarkable antibiotic properties. The team named the molecule halicin, a hat tip to the sentient AI system “Hal” from Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

When tested in mice, halicin was able to effectively treat tuberculosis and drug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, the family of bacteria that includes E. coli and Salmonella. It also proved extremely effective against Clostridium difficile, a “stomach bug” that often sweeps through hospitals, and another drug-resistant bacterium that can cause infections of the blood, urinary tract, and lungs. 

“Our approach revealed this amazing molecule which is arguably one of the more powerful antibiotics that has been discovered,” 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, said in a statement. 

Strangest of all, the potent antibiotic is structurally not like any other antibiotic seen before. If it were up to just humans, it’s very likely this antibiotic would not have been discovered at all because it looks so unusual. 

Advertisement

“This groundbreaking work signifies a paradigm shift in antibiotic discovery and indeed in drug discovery more generally,” added Roy Kishony, a professor of biology and computer science at Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), who was not involved in the study. 

After finding halicin, the team returned to the database and used the AI algorithm to sniff out more potential candidates. Within just three days, it identified 23 candidates that were structurally dissimilar to existing antibiotics and non-toxic to human cells. Later tests proved at least eight of these molecules had antibacterial properties, and two were particularly powerful.

All of these candidates could turn out to be invaluable tools for tackling superbugs and antibiotic-resistant infections. Due to the overuse of antibiotics, some potentially dangerous bacteria have evolved drug resistance, making them extremely tricky to treat. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently estimate that at least 2.8 million people get an antibiotic-resistant infection each year in the US and more than 35,000 people die from one. This is a trend that’s not going to stop any time soon as more and more bacteria gain resistance to conventional drugs. 

Advertisement

Thankfully, as this study shows, AI could help researchers expand our current arsenal of antibiotics and keep this problem at bay.

An original version of this article was published in February 2020.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Poland condemns jailing of Belarus protest leaders
  2. China energy crunch triggers alarm, pleas for more coal
  3. China proposes adding cryptocurrency mining to ‘negative list’ of industries
  4. Stranded Dolphins’ Brains Show Signs Of Alzheimer’s-Like Disease

Source Link: Powerful Antibiotics That Kill Superbugs Are Being Found By AI

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • 85-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Eggs Dated Using “Atomic Clock For Fossils” For The First Time
  • Why Shouldn’t You Kiss Babies? New Study Shows Even Healthy Newborns Can Become Severely Ill With RSV
  • Earth Has A New Quasi-Moon – And It Has Probably Been Around For Decades
  • Want To Kill Your Prey? Do It Feather-Legged Lace Weaver Spider Style And Vomit All Over Them
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: Are We In The Anthropocene?
  • The Wildfire Paradox Affecting 440 Million People Has As Worrying A Solution As You’d Expect
  • AI May Infringe On Your Rights And Insult Your Dignity (Unless We Do Something Soon)
  • How Do You Study Cryptic Species? We’re Finally Lifting The Lid On The World’s Least Understood Mammals
  • Once-In-A-Decade Close Encounter With Hazardous Asteroid 2025 FA22 Approaches
  • With 229 Pairs, This Beautiful Animal Has The Highest Number Of Chromosomes Of Any Animal
  • “An Unimaginable Breakthrough”: Loudest-Ever Gravitational Wave Collision Proves Stephen Hawking Correct
  • Exciting Martian Mudstone Has Features That Might Be Considered Biosignatures
  • How Long Did Dinosaurs Live? “It’s A Big Surprise To People That Work On Them”
  • NASA’s Mysterious Announcement: “Clearest Sign Of Life That We’ve Ever Found On Mars”
  • New Brain Implant Can Decode Your Internal Monologue, Raising Fears Of Mind Reading
  • “Immediate, Sustained, And Devastating” Pain: The Most Venomous Mammal Packs An Extremely Nasty Sting
  • Domestic Cats Keeping Making Hybrids. That’s A Problem, And Yes – That Includes Some Pets
  • These Strange Little Lizards Have Toxic Green Blood, And No One Knows Exactly Why
  • How Does 2-In-1 Shampoo And Conditioner Work?
  • There Are 2-Billion-Year-Old “Millennium Rocks” In A Suburb, Hundreds Of Miles From Their Primeval Home
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version