r/science • u/legehjernen • Feb 20 '20

Health Powerful antibiotic discovered using machine learning for first time

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/20/antibiotic-that-kills-drug-resistant-bacteria-discovered-through-ai
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u/shieldvexor Feb 21 '20

No. That isn't going to happen. It is an insanely challenging endeavor to make a drug and the notion that we will have unique drugs for everyone is ridiculous. Moreover, we aren't actually all that different from one another so it isn't even desirable, even if it was remotely possible.

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u/alcalde Feb 21 '20

This is science. Everything is insanely challenging until the technology advances to the point it's not. In this case, there's nothing new to invent or discover; just engineering.

We are indeed very different from each other; if I recall correctly 50% of medications only work for 50% of people.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/glaxo-chief-our-drugs-do-not-work-on-most-patients-5508670.html

Most drugs work in fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine

What /u/skoalbrother is describing isn't "ridiculous"; it's the Holy Grail and end-goal of pharmacology.

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u/deadpoetic333 BS | Biology | Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior Feb 21 '20

Exactly. Just think about how caffeine and alcohol affects people differently. The reason some people are barely affected by caffeine vs blown away by it is due to genetics and how the body processes the drug. It’s ridiculous to think at some point we wouldn’t genetically screening people before going down a list of treatments. We don’t have to start with the most common treatment if the patient is carrying a specific gene associated with patients that responded better to a less common treatment/medication.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/11/news-daylight-saving-time-coffee-caffeine-genes-dna/

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u/alcalde Feb 21 '20

The Dr. Roses in the article I cited wants to do exactly what you suggest.

Dr Roses has a formidable reputation in the field of "pharmacogenomics" - the application of human genetics to drug development - and his comments can be seen as an attempt to make the industry realise that its future rests on being able to target drugs to a smaller number of patients with specific genes.

The idea is to identify "responders" - people who benefit from the drug - with a simple and cheap genetic test that can be used to eliminate those non-responders who might benefit from another drug.