Generative AI being used to develop antimicrobial resistant antibiotics

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The Department of Health and Human Services has announced funding for antibiotic research and development using Generative AI.

The stop Emerging Threats (TARGET), through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), will use genAI to speed the discovery and development of new classes of antibiotics to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Bacterial infections are a leading cause of death worldwide and cost healthcare systems in the U.S. billions annually. There is an urgent need to develop new antibiotics as the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grows, HHS said.   

HHS said conventional efforts to identify and develop new antibiotics require extensive manual screening and testing of molecular compounds, with the majority failing to successfully show antibiotic activity. The current process impedes the ability to discover new antibiotics at the speed needed to address the urgent threat of antimicrobial resistance. 

WHY THIS MATTERS

Generative AI will be used to broaden the pool of candidate molecules. Deep learning will be able to identify biomolecules with antibiotic and pharmaceutical potential.

"The rise of antibiotic resistance threatens to turn once-treatable infections into life-threatening ones, but with AI, we can accelerate the discovery of new antibiotics to address this threat like never before," said ARPA-H Director Dr. Renee Wegrzyn. 

TARGET will be led by Phare Bio, along with the Collins Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard's Wyss Institute, with a budget of up to $27 million. 

The research team will focus on using generative AI to expand the number of antibiotic candidates and using deep learning and new screens to narrow the field of molecule candidates.

TARGET will validate each new promising discovery with the aim of identifying 15 promising leads for new antibiotics, which would help replenish the global pipeline, HHS said.

THE LARGER TREND

Each year, more than 35,000 people die because of antimicrobial-resistant infections, with more than 2.8 million infections occurring in the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control and Infection's Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2019. 

In 2019, the CDC estimated that antimicrobial resistance cost the United States $20 billion in healthcare costs and $35 billion in lost productivity.

Many of the germs that cause these infections are frequently found in healthcare settings, resulting in increased risks to patient safety and a burden on the healthcare system, since these infections often require substantial healthcare resources to treat, HHS said.

The CDC, in partnership with the University of Utah School of Medicine, estimated that treating six of the most alarming antimicrobial resistance threats contributes to more than $4.6 billion in healthcare costs annually.

This project comes one year after the ARPA-H announcement of the Defeating Antibiotic Resistance through Transformative Solutions (DARTS) project, which aims to develop a set of diagnostic and experimental platforms that can reveal insights into how antibiotic resistance starts.

ON THE RECORD

"Antibiotic resistance is a real and urgent threat affecting millions of people. We need to prevent infections and conserve the antibiotics we have. We also urgently need new drugs to treat these increasingly resistant infections. This project will use AI to speed this needed innovation and help ensure we have the medicines we need to keep people alive," said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org