Expanding our search for antibiotics: encrypted biology, ancient datasets and AI

AI is transforming how scientists mine biology for therapeutics, allowing researchers to dive deeper into both human and ancient biology to look for novel therapeutic molecules. We spoke with César de la Fuente (left) – Presidential Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania (PA, USA) – at ELRIG’s Drug Discovery 2025 (21–22 October; Liverpool, UK) to learn about how he has developed AI models to discover and design antibiotics. César’s hunt for novel antibiotics is spurred by the problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which contributed to approximately five million deaths around the globe in 2019. If left unaddressed, this number is projected...