ESKAPE 免費 AI 工具加快新抗生素搜尋
A free AI tool speeds up the search for new antibiotics
McMaster University Stokes Lab 的博士生 Autumn Arnold 開發 ESKAPE，這款免費 AI 模型可預測哪些化合物可能殺死危險細菌，協助加快新抗生素搜尋。研究人員上載化合物清單即可取得抗菌活性預測，並保留發現成果的所有權，毋須分享提交的化合物。研究人員至今已用 ESKAPE 篩查逾 12 million 個分子；模型每日可篩查逾 40,000 種化合物。
Drug-resistant infections kill more than a million people each year. But big pharmaceutical companies have largely abandoned the quest for new antibiotics, because the research and development needed to discover them is time-consuming and expensive.
Autumn Arnold, a PhD student in the Stokes Lab at McMaster University in Canada, came up with a fix: an AI model that predicts which chemical compounds might kill dangerous bacteria.
The model, called ESKAPE, is free to use: Researchers upload a list of compounds and get a prediction of their antibacterial activity. “All you need is an internet connection,” said Jonathan Stokes, a microbiologist who runs the lab. Researchers retain ownership of their discoveries, and don’t have to share the compounds they submit.
“We have this perfect storm with rising resistance, a really lean antibiotic pipeline, and enormous economic headwinds,” Stokes said. “It’s going to cost you $1 billion to make a new drug, and you’re never going to make your money back.”
So far, researchers have screened more than 12 million molecules using the ESKAPE model. In total, the model can screen more than 40,000 compounds a day, which has the potential to dramatically speed up drug discovery.
Another approach, developed by researchers at MIT and Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, is using “generative deep learning” to create entirely new molecules to target antibiotic resistance.
“This is a global problem,” Stokes says. “We need everybody helping out.”
來源：Semafor · semafor.com