HHS Invests in New Antibiotics R&D Using Generative AI

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) will fund the Transforming Antibiotic R&D with Generative AI to stop Emerging Threats (TARGET) project, which will use AI to speed the discovery and development of new classes of antibiotics.

This program is another action to support the U.S.’s commitment to combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR), from innovation to international collaboration.

“Antibiotic resistance is a real and urgent threat affecting millions of people,” said Xavier Becerra, HHS secretary. “We need to prevent infections and conserve the antibiotics we have. We also urgently need new drugs to treat these increasingly resistant infections. This project will use AI to speed this needed innovation and help ensure we have the medicines we need to keep people alive.”

Bacterial infections are a leading cause of death worldwide, and new antibiotics development is needed as the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grows. Conventional efforts to identify and develop new antibiotics require extensive manual screening and testing of molecular compounds, with the majority failing to show antibiotic activity. The laborious process impedes the ability to discover new antibiotics at the speed needed to address the urgent threat of antimicrobial resistance, HHS said. TARGET aims to close this gap by using deep learning to identify biomolecules with antibiotic and pharmaceutical potential and using generative AI to broaden the pool of candidate molecules.

“The rise of antibiotic resistance threatens to turn once-treatable infections into life-threatening ones, but with AI, we can accelerate the discovery of new antibiotics to address this threat like never before,” said Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, ARPA-H director. “With TARGET, ARPA-H is bringing together experts across antibiotic discovery, AI, and clinical testing to ensure we can refill the global pipeline of antibiotics and stop people from becoming seriously ill due to treatable infections.”

TARGET will be led by Phare Bio, along with the Collins Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard’s Wyss Institute, with a budget of up to US$27 million. To accelerate the discovery and development of new antibiotics, the research team will focus on:

1. Using generative AI to expand the number of antibiotic candidates. 
2. Using generative AI to expand the number of antibiotic candidates. 
3. Validating discoveries.