James
14-08-2025, 04:43 PM
AI designs antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA superbugs
In the foreground is a round, translucent, petri dish with tiny blue dots of bacterial growth. It is being held by a scientist, out of focus in the background, wearing a pair of purple latex gloves and using a fine needle-like implement to manipulate the blue bacterial colonies.
James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent
@JamesTGallagher
Published
1 hour ago
Artificial intelligence has invented two new potential antibiotics that could kill drug-resistant gonorrhoea and MRSA, researchers have revealed.
The drugs were designed atom-by-atom by the AI and killed the superbugs in laboratory and animal tests.
The two compounds still need years of refinement and clinical trials before they could be prescribed.
But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) team behind it say AI could start a "second golden age" in antibiotic discovery.
Antibiotics kill bacteria, but infections that resist treatment are now causing more than a million deaths a year.
Overusing antibiotics has helped bacteria evolve to dodge the drugs' effects, and there has been a shortage of new antibiotics for decades.
Researchers have previously used AI to trawl through thousands of known chemicals in an attempt to identify ones with potential to become new antibiotics.....
From BBC News - AI designs new superbug-killing antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgr94xxye2lo?app-referrer=push-notification
In the foreground is a round, translucent, petri dish with tiny blue dots of bacterial growth. It is being held by a scientist, out of focus in the background, wearing a pair of purple latex gloves and using a fine needle-like implement to manipulate the blue bacterial colonies.
James Gallagher
Health and science correspondent
@JamesTGallagher
Published
1 hour ago
Artificial intelligence has invented two new potential antibiotics that could kill drug-resistant gonorrhoea and MRSA, researchers have revealed.
The drugs were designed atom-by-atom by the AI and killed the superbugs in laboratory and animal tests.
The two compounds still need years of refinement and clinical trials before they could be prescribed.
But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) team behind it say AI could start a "second golden age" in antibiotic discovery.
Antibiotics kill bacteria, but infections that resist treatment are now causing more than a million deaths a year.
Overusing antibiotics has helped bacteria evolve to dodge the drugs' effects, and there has been a shortage of new antibiotics for decades.
Researchers have previously used AI to trawl through thousands of known chemicals in an attempt to identify ones with potential to become new antibiotics.....
From BBC News - AI designs new superbug-killing antibiotics for gonorrhoea and MRSA - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgr94xxye2lo?app-referrer=push-notification