New superbug-killing antibiotic discovered using AI

The Coombes lab had the pleasure to contribute to this awesome new story coming out of the lab of Jon Stokes at McMaster University and the Institute for Infectious Disease Research. Using primary screening data, the Stokes lab trained a neural network to computationally predict new antibiotics that would be active against Acinetobacter baumanii, a nasty superbug on the WHO's Most Wanted List.

After synthesis of priority new molecules, one was identified that had potent, narrow-spectrum activity against Acinetobacter baumanii. We got involved to test this new antibiotic in pre-clinical mouse models, and showed it to inhibit Acinetobacter growth in a wound infection model.

McMaster Press Release here: https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/artificial-intelligence-new-antibiotic-drug-resistant-pathogen-acinetobacter-baumannii/

BBC article about the work here: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-65709834

Read the paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-023-01349-8