The new compound is named Halicin, after the murderous AI from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey." It has raised hopes that artificial intelligence might boost the lagging antibiotic development field.

New antibiotic halicin (top row) shows much stronger antibacterial effects against E. coli than existing antibiotic ciprofloxacin (bottom row), to which many bugs are already resistant.

Lo and behold, that same E. coli antibiotic, halicin, is also good at fighting other bacteria, in particular A. baumannii, the presence of which it drastically reduced in mice who'd been infected ...

AI identified Halicin to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria efficiently Halicin disrupts bacterial membranes, blocking their reproduction This discovery showcases AI's role in revolutionizing ...

MIT scientists have revealed that their AI discovered an antibiotic compound, halicin (named after 2001's HAL 9000), that can not only kill many forms of resistant bacteria but do so in a novel way.

Artificial intelligence is already showing promising results in finding new antibiotics.In 2019, researchers used a deep learning approach to identify the wide-spectrum antibiotic Halicin.

The selected compound, named halicin, was not found to be resistant to E. coli during a 30-day period, ... Machine Learning in Antibiotic Discovery. News-Medical, viewed 26 May 2025, ...

Other AI approaches have also shown promise. An MIT group, in particular, has been focused on developing entirely new antibiotics to fight superbugs. Their first study, published in 2020, established ...

An antibiotic candidate that Collins' lab discovered in 2020, halicin, appears to work by a similar mechanism but is specific to Gram-negative bacteria (bacteria with thin cell walls).

The discovery of halicin paints a picture of just how rapid AI-assisted drug discovery can be. Scientists trained their AI model by introducing it to approximately 2,500 molecules (1,700 of which ...

Researchers have used a new form of AI to discover a class of antibiotics that can kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.

A researcher hoping to use AI will need to acquire not only a deep understanding of a particular problem—such as antibiotic resistance—but also the knowledge of which data, and what ...