The new method<\/a>, known as ApexGO, uses AI to improve promising molecules step by step rather than by searching large chemical databases for potential antibiotics.<\/p>\nScientists behind the project say the technology could speed up the discovery of life-saving medicines at a time when antibiotic resistance is becoming a growing worldwide threat.<\/p>\n
A new approach to antibiotic discovery<\/p>\n
Unlike many AI systems already used in drug discovery, ApexGO does not begin with millions of unknown compounds. Instead, it starts with a small number of partially effective molecules and refines them through a series of calculated modifications.<\/p>\n
\u201cAntibiotic discovery is fundamentally a search problem across an enormous molecular space, ApexGO gives us a way to navigate that space with far more direction,\u201d said C\u00e9sar de la Fuente, co-senior author of the study.\u00a0\u201cApexGO begins with a promising but imperfect peptide, proposes precise edits, predicts whether those changes are likely to enhance antimicrobial activity and then keeps moving toward versions that are more likely to work when we make and test them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Unlike many AI systems already used in drug discovery, ApexGO does not begin with millions of unknown compounds<\/p>\n
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Laboratory testing showed encouraging results. Researchers found that 85 percent of AI-designed molecules successfully stopped bacterial growth, while 72 percent performed better than the original peptides from which they were developed.<\/p>\n
In mouse studies, two antimicrobial peptides generated by ApexGO reduced bacterial levels at rates comparable to polymyxin B, an FDA-approved antibiotic used as a last-resort treatment against certain resistant infections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is striking is that ApexGO\u2019s predictions held up in the real world,\u201d said Jacob Gardner, Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Science and co-senior author of the paper.\u00a0\u201cApexGO was optimising against another computer model, so one concern was that it might find molecules that looked good to the model but failed in the lab. Instead, the majority of the molecules it designed actually worked.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Low-Res_P1175610\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20911_lowres_p1175610_785995.jpg\")
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Building on earlier AI research<\/p>\n
The project builds on earlier work by de la Fuente\u2019s laboratory, which previously developed an AI model called APEX that predicts whether peptides may possess antimicrobial properties.<\/p>\n
For years, researchers in the lab have searched for antibiotic candidates in different and unusual places, including frog secretions and ancient microbes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAPEX helped us find promising antibiotic candidates in enormous biological datasets,\u201d said Marcelo Torres,\u00a0Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine and co-first author of the paper.\u00a0\u201cApexGO takes the next step: once we have a promising molecule, it helps us ask how to make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n
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APEX helped us find promising antibiotic candidates in enormous biological datasets<\/p>\n
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The system relies on Bayesian optimisation, a machine learning approach that helps AI systems efficiently explore large numbers of possibilities without testing every single option individually.<\/p>\n
Faster drug discovery<\/p>\n
Although the newly designed peptides remain early-stage candidates requiring further testing for safety and stability, scientists believe the technology could significantly reduce the time needed to identify viable drug treatments.<\/p>\n
\u201cApexGO shows that AI can do more than predict which molecules might work: it can help us improve them,\u201d said de la Fuente. \u201cAt a time when antibiotic resistance is rising worldwide, we need technologies that help us move faster from an idea to a real therapeutic candidate\u00a0\u2013 ApexGO is an important step toward that future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers at University of Pennsylvania have developed a powerful new artificial intelligence system capable of reforming imperfect antibiotic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-666764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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