Generative AI develops potential new drugs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Researchers at Stanford Medicine and McMaster University have developed a new model, SyntheMol, to combat antibiotic resistance. The model has created structures and chemical recipes for six novel drugs aimed at killing resistant strains of Acinetobacter baumannii, a leading pathogen responsible for antibacterial resistance-related deaths. The researchers used generative artificial intelligence to design new molecules that have never been seen in nature. The study, published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, aims to address the urgent need for new antibiotics and the need for rapid development of new antibiotics. Prior to generative AI, researchers used algorithms to scroll through existing drug libraries, identifying compounds most likely to act against a given pathogen.