This precision antibiotic treats bowel disease. Its discovery was fast-tracked by AI

Scientists at McMaster University just made two exciting breakthroughs at once: the first is the discovery of a targeted antibiotic that kills key bacteria behind bowel disease while sparing the wider gut biome. And the second is how this new drug was discovered. For the first time, using AI, researchers successfully predicted the medicine’s ‘mechanism of action’ (MOA). Isolating the MOA is a notorious bottleneck in new drug development - it can take years and cost millions of dollars. But with the AI model, the team were able to cut the MOA process down to six months and $60,000 - paving the way for the faster discovery of new antibiotics with which to tackle rising antimicrobial resistance.