Of all the areas of drug development that artificial intelligence has the potential to transform, antibiotics may be the most consequential.
Existing antibiotics are failing, and it has been decades since a truly novel class of antibiotics was developed and brought to market. Antibiotic-resistant infections now contribute to 4.9 million deaths globally each year, and a recent World Health Organization review found that 1 in 6 lab-confirmed bacterial infections shows some degree of resistance. These hard-to-treat infections translate into longer hospital stays, higher mortality, and riskier medical procedures.Read the rest…