Scientists have used artificial intelligence (AI) to discover a new antibiotic that can kill a deadly species of superbug.

The AI helped narrow down thousands of potential chemicals to a handful that could be tested in the laboratory.

The result was a potent, experimental antibiotic called abaucin, which will needfurther tests before being used.

The researchers in Canada and the US say AI has the power to massively accelerate the discovery of new drugs.

It is the latest example of how the tools of artificial intelligence can be a revolutionary force in science andmedicine.

Stopping the superbugs

Antibiotics kill bacteria. However, there has been a lack of new drugs for decades and bacteria are becoming harder to treat, as they evolve resistance to the ones we have.

More than a million people a yearare estimated to die from infections that resist treatment with antibiotics.

The researchers focused on one of the most problematic species of bacteria -Acinetobacter baumannii, which can infect wounds and cause pneumonia.

You may not have heard of it, but it is one ofthe three superbugs the World Health Organization has identified asa "critical" threat.

It is often able to shrug off multiple antibiotics and is a problem in hospitals and care homes, where it can survive on surfaces and medical equipment.

Dr Jonathan Stokes, from McMaster University, describes the bug as "public enemy number one" as it's "really common" to find cases where it is "resistant to nearly every antibiotic".

Artificial intelligence

To find a new antibiotic, the researchers first had to train the AI. They took thousands of drugs where the precise chemical structure was known, and manually tested them onAcinetobacter baumanniito see which could slow it down or kill it.

This information was fed into the AI so it could learn the chemical featuresof drugs that could attack the problematic bacterium.

The AI was then unleashed on a list of 6,680 compounds whose effectiveness was unknown. The results -published in Nature Chemical Biology- showed it took the AI an hour and a half to produce a shortlist.

The researchers tested 240 in the laboratory, and found nine potential antibiotics. One of them was the incredibly potent antibiotic abaucin.

Laboratory experiments showed it could treat infected wounds in mice and was able to killA. baumanniisamples from patients.

However, Dr Stokes told me: "This is when the work starts."

The next step is to perfect the drug in the laboratory and then perform clinical trials. He expects the first AI antibiotics could take until 2030 until they are available to be prescribed.

Curiously, this experimental antibiotic had no effect on other species of bacteria, and works only onA. baumannii.

Many antibiotics kill bacteria indiscriminately. The researchers believe the precision of abaucin will make it harder for drug-resistance to emerge, and could lead to fewer side-effects.

In principle, the AI could screen tens of millions of potential compounds - something that would be impractical to do manually.

"AI enhances the rate, and in a perfect world decreases the cost, withwhich we can discover these new classes of antibiotic that we desperately need," Dr Stokes told me.

The researchers tested the principles of AI-aided antibiotic discoveryin E. coli in 2020, but have now used that knowledge to focus on the big nasties. They plan to look atStaphylococcus aureusandPseudomonas aeruginosanext.

"This finding further supports the premise that AI can significantly accelerate and expand our search for novel antibiotics," said Prof James Collins, from the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology.

He added: "I'm excited that this work shows that we can use AI to help combat problematic pathogens such as A. baumannii."(BBC)

•Scientist Denise Catacutan working on the experimental antibiotic discovered with the help of artificial intelligence