Faced with the alarming increase in cases of antibiotic resistance, a major threat to global public health, researchers have taken a giant step forward using artificial intelligence. Using this technology, they discovered new molecules potentially capable of fighting resistant bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus.
Antibiotic resistance, a growing medical challenge, causes more than a million deaths each year. Bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus, are becoming increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics. L’artificial intelligenceartificial intelligence opens new ways to combat this phenomenon by discovering new classes of antibiotics. This is what a team published in Nature.
AI as a tool to discover new antibiotics
L’antibiotic resistanceantibiotic resistance is currently of concern for Staphylococcus aureus, particularly its methicillin-resistant strain, known as Sarm. This microbemicrobe can cause infections ranging from mild to fatal, such as pneumoniapneumonia or blood infections. Faced with this challenge, AI offers revolutionary hope.
Researchers have used this technology to analyze the effectiveness of more than 12 million substances available on the market. They thus discovered promising compounds from five different chemical families, all apparently effective against Sarm. Subsequently, 280 of these compounds were selected for laboratory testing. Finally, two compounds, belonging to the same class, showed particularly remarkable effectiveness, reducing the Sarm population by ten in cutaneous and systemic infection models in mice.
This innovative approach promises to open new avenues in the fight against antibiotic resistance, a major global public health issue.
