There is a silent and growing threat: the world is running out of antibiotics because bacteria are learning to resist them. Amid this critical scenario, César de la Fuente, a Spanish researcher, developed a disruptive method that changes the rules of biology: he uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to design and discover new antibiotics.
From an early age, De la Fuente sought to understand how biology worked. His drive led him to study biotechnology at the University of León, continuing his scientific career at the University of British Columbia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
He started with a simple question: “How do I teach a machine to create a drug that can kill bacteria?” Famous scientists told him, “It’s not possible.”
Today, at the University of Pennsylvania, he leads an interdisciplinary laboratory where they build AI and deep learning programs powered by neural network models and large language models (LLMs) that explore existing biology and learn from it.
- It uses generative AI to detect any antimicrobial behavior in proteins that has gone unnoticed by the human “eye.”
- All AI results are experimentally verified in the laboratory through chemical synthesis.
Millions of potential antibiotics have already been discovered! They are currently in the preclinical phase.
What about AI hallucination? It brings creativity to research. The algorithm has already designed molecules with new mechanisms of action to kill bacteria.
The main advantage is that it saves time… time that can save lives. Discovering antibiotics using traditional methods can take between 6 and 7 years. With AI, it can be done in a matter of hours.
It is the greatest discovery of antibiotics in history. MIT has already recognized César de la Fuente as one of the world’s most important innovators.
Once again, a Spaniard is leading humanity into new territory, one where biology and advanced AI merge, one where the antibiotics of the future lie.
