Powerful antibiotic discovered using machine learning for first time

theguardian.com

40 pointsevgenit3 comments

Not details on whether this only kills bacteria.

There are many chemicals discovered over the years that kill bacteria, but have the downside of damaging/killing many other things (eg the patient).

Sounds like the main data sources were previous drug trials and possibly the kind of lists of similar compounds that drug companies generate and patent when they hope one of them might turn out to treat a particular disease well. So with some luck they have taken one that already has a few lab tests under its belt (like halicin).

We are just making better bacteria- we need to quit giving people antibiotics for the sniffles. Its just insane the number of people that think they NEED to have a pill for a viral cold. Your poor doctor has to put up with these requests all day.

Really cool work, I worry that long term we are going to need to find better ways to control Antibiotic abuse.

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