{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2023-05-25-abaucin-ai-antibiotic/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2023-05-25-abaucin-ai-antibiotic/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2023-05-25-abaucin-ai-antibiotic","date":"2023-05-25","date_precision":"day","short_title":"AI finds abaucin, a narrow-spectrum antibiotic against the superbug Acinetobacter baumannii","deck":null,"takeaway":"McMaster and MIT researchers (Nature Chemical Biology, May 2023) trained a model on ~7,500 screened molecules and found abaucin, which selectively kills A. baumannii by disrupting lipoprotein trafficking (LolE) and controlled infection in a mouse wound model.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"Deep learning-guided discovery of an antibiotic targeting Acinetobacter baumannii (Nat Chem Biol)","url":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41589-023-01349-8","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"nature.com"},{"n":2,"title":"MIT News: Using AI, scientists find a drug that could combat drug-resistant infections","url":"https://news.mit.edu/2023/using-ai-scientists-combat-drug-resistant-infections-0525","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"news.mit.edu"}],"official":1,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["McMaster University","MIT"],"title":"AI finds abaucin, a narrow-spectrum antibiotic against the superbug Acinetobacter baumannii","summary":"McMaster and MIT researchers (Nature Chemical Biology, May 2023) trained a model on ~7,500 screened molecules and found abaucin, which selectively kills A. baumannii by disrupting lipoprotein trafficking (LolE) and controlled infection in a mouse wound model.","key_facts":["Nat Chem Biol 19:1342–1350 (2023)","Narrow-spectrum: spares most other bacteria","Mechanism: perturbs lipoprotein trafficking via LolE"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["biology","antibiotics","drug-discovery"],"science":{"field":"medicine","subfield":"antibiotic discovery","problem":"Drugs for WHO-priority pathogen A. baumannii","result":"A new narrow-spectrum antibiotic with a novel mechanism, effective in a mouse wound infection model.","open_since":"","ai_system":["graph neural network (Chemprop)"],"human_role":"Human-led with AI tools","verification":{"key":"peer-review","label":"Peer-reviewed","text":"Peer-reviewed in Nature Chemical Biology; lab-validated in mice"},"status":"confirmed","shock":""},"body_md":"## What happened\n\nA model trained on a modest screen predicted which compounds would inhibit A. baumannii, leading to abaucin.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nIt showed that AI could find narrow-spectrum antibiotics, which spare the microbiome and slow resistance.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2023-12-20-ai-new-antibiotic-structural-class","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2023-12-20-ai-new-antibiotic-structural-class/","date":"2023-12-20","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Explainable deep learning discovers a new structural class of antibiotics against MRSA","deck":null,"takeaway":"New structural classes of antibiotics are rarely discovered.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":2,"official":1,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["MIT","Broad Institute"]},{"id":"2020-02-20-halicin-ai-antibiotic","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2020-02-20-halicin-ai-antibiotic/","date":"2020-02-20","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Deep learning discovers halicin, a structurally new broad-spectrum antibiotic","deck":null,"takeaway":"It launched the modern field of AI antibiotic discovery at a time of stalled antibiotic pipelines.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":3,"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["MIT","Broad Institute"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true}],"short_url":null}