University of Texas researchers have used AI to develop a safer, effective version of an antibiotic that shows promise in animal trials. This new method could accelerate the creation of treatments for antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Credit: The University of Texas at Austin In a hopeful development for the demand for safer and more effective antibiotics, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have utilized artificial intelligence to create a new drug that is already demonstrating promise in animal trials.
Publishing their results in Nature Biomedical Engineering , the scientists describe using a large language model—an AI tool like the one that powers ChatGPT—to engineer a version of a bacteria-killing drug that was previously toxic in humans, so that it would be safe to use. The prognosis for patients with dangerous bacterial infections has worsened in recent years as antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains spread and the development of new treatment options has stalled. However, UT researchers say AI tools are game-changing.
“We have found that large language models are a major step forward for machine learning applications in protein and peptide engineering,” said Claus Wilke, professor of integrative biology and statistics and data sciences, and co-senior author of the new paper. “Many use cases that weren’t feasible with prior approaches are now starting to work. I foresee that these and similar approaches are going to be used widely for d.