Recently, using AI, scientists have discovered a compound that can destroy drug-resistant superbugs. This type of superbug is considered a critical threat by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) is a highly contagious bacteria found in hospital environments. It can be transmitted through airborne droplets or surfaces. However, the most common route of transmission is through poorly cleaned hands, according to medical research site ScienceDirect .
Using AI technology, scientists have found a compound that kills the drug-resistant superbug A. baumannii.
Those most vulnerable to A. baumannii include people with weakened immune systems and premature babies. A. baumannii is now resistant to most antibiotics. The WHO considers drug-resistant bacteria a major threat to global health. Therefore, finding new antibiotics is an urgent need.
In a recently published study, scientists at two American universities, McMaster University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have discovered a new compound capable of destroying the drug-resistant superbug A. baumannii, thereby opening up the potential to create new antibiotics for humanity. In particular, AI has become a key tool to help achieve this achievement.
The team trained the AI and used it to screen about 7,500 compounds to find those that had the ability to fight A. baumannii bacteria. This compound was called Abaucin.
In tests on mice, researchers found that the antibiotic Abaucin could effectively treat infections caused by drug-resistant A. baumannii bacteria. Abaucin experiments on infected cultured cells also gave similar results. The study was published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology .
AI has the ability to learn extremely quickly, especially analyzing and learning from data it has been exposed to in the past. Thanks to that, this technology can effectively screen hundreds of millions, even billions of compounds with antibacterial properties to find the right one. Previously, molecular screening techniques were a big challenge because they were time-consuming, expensive, and limited in the number of molecules screened.
The researchers hope that the AI method they used to find Abaucin can be used to find new antibiotics to kill other drug-resistant bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile. These bacteria cause more serious wound infections, causing pneumonia, sepsis, meningitis, and even death, according to ScienceDirect.
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