Scientists from the United States and Canada have found a new antibiotic – powerful enough to kill a superbug – using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Key points
- Superbugs are bacteria that are resistant to several types of antibiotics. Each year these drug-resistant bacteria infect more than 2 million people in the US and kill at least 23,000, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
- The study published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology on May 25 dealt with the bacterium Acinetobacter baumannii and saw participation from Canada’s McMaster University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.
- In 2017, the bacterium was identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the world’s most dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
- A. baumannii can cause pneumonia, meningitis and infect wounds, all of which can lead to death.
- According to MIT, the researchers first exposed A. baumannii grown in a lab dish to about 7,500 different chemical compounds, to see which ones could help pause the growth of the bacterium.
