The UK is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle the rising numbers of infections that have become resistant to treatment. The project – a collaboration between the Fleming Initiative and the pharmaceutical company GSK – is a battle between superbugs and super computers. It aims to speed up the discovery of fresh antibiotics and deliver new ways of killing other threats, including deadly fungal infections.
Overusing antibiotics drives bacteria to evolve resistance to infections, which means new drugs are a priority.”This represents the single biggest investment in a UK antibiotic project I’m aware of,” says Dr Andrew Edwards from Imperial College London.
He will be targeting AI at a tricky group of infections, called Gram-negative bacteria, that includes well known bugs such as E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae.
These species have an extra outer layer they use to control what gets in and out of a bacterium. Gram-negative species can block antibiotics from getting in and rapidly pump out those that penetrate the bacterial defences – making them tough to treat.
