{
  "id": 7733384,
  "title": "From 7,000 drugs to one active against resistant strains: AI advances pneumonia drug repurposing",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/16/from-7-000-drugs-to-one-active-against-resistant-strains-ai-advances",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-09-16T07:10:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Medical Xpress",
    "slug": "medical-xpress",
    "url": "https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-09-drugs-resistant-strains-ai-advances.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterial pathogen responsible for severe infections like pneumonia and meningitis, can develop resistance to antibiotics over time. This antimicrobial resistance leads to costly healthcare expenses and numerous fatalities globally. A recent study published in Advanced Science employed artificial intelligence (AI) to identify existing drugs that could potentially combat Streptococcus pneumoniae. By repurposing drugs with established safety profiles for new applications, researchers can save time and resources while minimizing risks. AI proved particularly effective in selecting promising candidates through computational strategies. In this case, three different learning algorithms - ensembles of decision trees, ensembles of graph neural networks, and ensembles of sequence-based transformers - were trained on data sets of molecules active against S. pneumoniae and inactive against another drug-resistant bacterium. Using these AI models, nearly 7,000 candidate drugs were screened for inhibition of S. pneumoniae. Among these, nine compounds were found to inhibit bacterial growth, with one of the two most potent drugs maintaining effectiveness even against drug-resistant strains. Combining diverse AI models enhanced the selection of candidate drugs, making them more potent together than individually. The study's senior author, Pedro J. Ballester, emphasized the value of AI-driven computational drug repurposing in addressing the urgent need for effective compounds in the face of antimicrobial resistance.",
  "summary": "Streptococcus pneumoniae is a bacterial pathogen that causes life-threatening infections, including pneumonia and meningitis. These infections are commonly treated with antibiotics, but antibiotics are becoming less effective against S. pneumoniae over time because of changes in the pathogen that cause drug resistance. This phenomenon, called antimicrobial resistance, is resulting in significant…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}