They also told the model whether each structure could inhibit bacterial growth or not. This allowed the algorithm to learn chemical features associated with growth inhibition.

Once the model was trained, the researchers used it to analyze a set of 6, compounds it had not seen before, which came from the Drug Repurposing Hub at the Broad Institute.

This analysis, which took less than two hours, yielded a few hundred top hits. Of these, the researchers chose to test experimentally in the lab, focusing on compounds with structures that were different from those of existing antibiotics or molecules from the training data.

Those tests yielded nine antibiotics, including one that was very potent. This compound, which was originally explored as a potential diabetes drug, turned out to be extremely effective at killing A. baumannii but had no effect on other species of bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Staphylococcus aureus , and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.

Another advantage is that the drug would likely spare the beneficial bacteria that live in the human gut and help to suppress opportunistic infections such as Clostridium difficile.

In studies in mice, the researchers showed that the drug, which they named abaucin, could treat wound infections caused by A. They also showed, in lab tests, that it works against a variety of drug-resistant A.

baumannii strains isolated from human patients. Further experiments revealed that the drug kills cells by interfering with a process known as lipoprotein trafficking, which cells use to transport proteins from the interior of the cell to the cell envelope. Specifically, the drug appears to inhibit LolE, a protein involved in this process.

All Gram-negative bacteria express this enzyme, so the researchers were surprised to find that abaucin is so selective in targeting A.

They hypothesize that slight differences in how A. baumannii does lipoprotein trafficking a little bit differently than other Gram-negative species. The researchers also plan to use their modeling approach to identify potential antibiotics for other types of drug-resistant infections, including those caused by Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The research was funded by the David Braley Center for Antibiotic Discovery, the Weston Family Foundation, the Audacious Project, the C3. ai Digital Transformation Institute, the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, the DTRA Discovery of Medical Countermeasures Against New and Emerging Threats program, the DARPA Accelerated Molecular Discovery program, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Genome Canada, the Faculty of Health Sciences of McMaster University, the Boris Family, a Marshall Scholarship, and the Department of Energy Biological and Environmental Research program.

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have used artificial intelligence to develop a new antibiotic to combat Acinetobacter baumannii , a challenging bacteria known to become resistant to antibiotics, reports Hannah Kuchler for the Financial Times.

Researchers from MIT and McMaster University have used artificial intelligence to identify a new antibiotic that can fight against a drug-resistant bacteria commonly found in hospitals and medical offices, reports Ken Alltucker for USA Today. Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have used artificial intelligence to develop a new antibiotic to address Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacteria known for infecting wounds, lungs and kidneys, reports Harland-Dunaway for The World.

Researchers from MIT and McMaster University used a machine-learning algorithm to identify a new antibiotic that can treat a bacteria that causes deadly infections, reports Maya Yang for The Guardian. Using a machine-learning algorithm, researchers from MIT and McMaster University have discovered a new type of antibiotic that works against a type of drug-resistant bacteria, reports Brenda Goodman for CNN.

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Search MIT. Search websites, locations, and people. Enter keywords to search for news articles: Submit. Browse By. Breadcrumb MIT News Using AI, scientists find a drug that could combat drug-resistant infections.

Using AI, scientists find a drug that could combat drug-resistant infections. The machine-learning algorithm identified a compound that kills Acinetobacter baumannii, a bacterium that lurks in many hospital settings.

Anne Trafton MIT News Office. Publication Date :. Press Inquiries. Press Contact : Sarah McDonnell. Phone: Fax: Antibiotics end up selecting for these resistant bacteria. The more we use antibiotics, the more probable is the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Go back Home News New strategies to fight antimicrobial resistance.

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We interview him ahead of the event that aims to raise awareness about this topic organised by the European Parliament's Panel for the Future of Science and Technology STOA on 29 March

For their proof-of-concept study, published in the journal eLife , the researchers inhibited DsbA, using chemicals that cannot be used directly in human patients, to prevent the formation of resistance proteins. The team is now planning to work on developing inhibitors that can be safely used in humans while also achieving the same protective effect.

Scientists had previously known that DsbA was involved in a range of functions in pathogens, such as building toxins to attack host cells and assisting with the assembly of needle-like systems that can deliver these toxins into human cells and cause disease.

Dr Mavridou began investigating the possibility that DsbA played a key role in the folding of proteins that help bacteria resist antibiotics while she was an MRC Career Development Fellow at Imperial College London, and before moving to the University of Texas at Austin UT Austin faculty in Other researchers involved in the study were based at Universidad de Sevilla in Spain, Brunel University London, the University of Birmingham, Paris-Sud University in France, and Université de Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

This research was supported in part by the Medical Research Council in the UK and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health in the US.

is published in eLife. Article text excluding photos or graphics © Imperial College London. Photos and graphics subject to third party copyright used with permission or © Imperial College London.

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That raises the possibility of using them to treat infections caused by biofilms, such as the Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections that often affect the lungs of cystic fibrosis patients.

Or, they could be embedded into surfaces such as tabletops to make them resistant to microbial growth. Other possible applications for these peptides include antimicrobial coatings for catheters, or ointments that could be used to treat skin infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus or other bacteria.

If these peptides are developed for therapeutic use, the researchers anticipate that they could be used either in stand-alone therapy or together with traditional antibiotics, which would make it more difficult for bacteria to evolve drug resistance.

The researchers are now investigating what makes the engineered peptides more effective than the naturally occurring ones, with hopes of making them even better.

In an article for Popular Science , Kate Baggaley speaks with Prof. Timothy Lu and postdoc César de la Fuente about strategies they are developing to tackle antibiotic resistance. Previous item Next item. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Search MIT. Search websites, locations, and people. Enter keywords to search for news articles: Submit. Browse By. Breadcrumb MIT News Engineers design a new weapon against bacteria.

Engineers design a new weapon against bacteria. Antimicrobial peptides can kill strains resistant to existing antibiotics. Anne Trafton MIT News Office. Publication Date :. Press Inquiries. Press Contact : Sarah McDonnell. Phone: Fax: Caption : A team of researchers at MIT, the University of Brasilia, and the University of British Columbia has now engineered an antimicrobial peptide that can destroy many types of bacteria, including some that are resistant to most antibiotics.

Credits : Image: MIT News. Caption :. Credits :. Improving on nature Antimicrobial peptides, produced by all living organisms as part of their immune defenses, kill microbes in several different ways.

Suppressing sepsis Another key advantage of these peptides is that while they recruit immune cells to combat the infection, they also suppress the overactive inflammatory response that can cause sepsis, a life threatening condition.

Share this news article on: X Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Print. Popular Science In an article for Popular Science , Kate Baggaley speaks with Prof.

Related Links Paper: "An anti-infective synthetic peptide with dual antimicrobial and immunomodulatory activities" Synthetic Biology Group Synthetic Biology Center Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of Biological Engineering School of Engineering.

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