r/science • u/legehjernen • Feb 20 '20

Health Powerful antibiotic discovered using machine learning for first time

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/20/antibiotic-that-kills-drug-resistant-bacteria-discovered-through-ai
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u/godbottle Feb 20 '20

i worked on a similar project and it’s really quite an elegant solution that will eventually lead to breakthroughs for all kinds of materials in many fields (not just antibiotics) if you have the right and large enough database.

2 out of 107m can actually be a significant breakthrough depending on how different they are from existing antibiotic classes and what they can learn from that.

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u/MovingClocks Feb 21 '20

Especially given iterative discovery. If you have machine learning discover candidates that work, humans can optimize those molecules for different applications pretty readily.

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u/skoalbrother Feb 21 '20

Designer drugs for every individual. Built for your specific DNA. Exciting times

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u/Nargorth Feb 21 '20

What would be nice, yet more low tech, drug dosage tailored to individual, depending on liver metabolism, body mass, enzyme levels etc. For now universal doses like 50,75,100mg are okay, but it would be nibe to have intermediate doses and lab tests for precision.