Scientists employ AI to discover first new antibiotic in 60 years

A new class of antibiotics for drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria which was discovered using more transparent deep-learning models.

Euronews reported that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be a game-changer when it comes to medicine with the technology now helping scientists to unlock the first new antibiotics in 60 years.

The discovery of a new compound, published on December 20, that can kill a drug-resistant bacterium that kills thousands worldwide every year could prove to be a turning point in the fight against antibiotic resistance.

The team behind the project used a deep-learning model to predict the activity and toxicity of the new compound.

Deep learning involves the use of artificial neural networks to automatically learn and represent features from data without explicit programming.