'Oh my God, you're my brother': Man in his 70s discovers 6 unknown siblings
After receiving a DNA kit one Christmas from his son-in-law, Hugh McCormick soon discovered that he had six unknown siblings, with whom he shared the same birth parents.
With the use of artificial intelligence, scientists in Canada and the United States have discovered an antibiotic that could be used to fight a deadly, drug-resistant pathogen — and they hope to employ a similar process to discover treatments for other challenging bacteria.
In a study published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology Thursday, the researchers at McMaster University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shared their promising findings about the new antibacterial treatment, which they named abaucin.
Jon Stokes, a lead author of the research paper, said the antibiotic could be used to fight Acinetobacter baumannii, which the World Health Organization has identified as one of the world’s most dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
“In my opinion, it is public enemy No. 1 for antibiotic resistance — it’s very difficult to treat,” said Stokes, who is an assistant professor in the department of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster.
“It tends to live in hospital settings, so you find it on doorknobs and hospital equipment and stuff. And it's really challenging to sterilize, so it can survive on these hospital surfaces for prolonged periods of time.”
The bacterial pathogen, also known as A. baumannii, can cause pneumonia, meningitis and infect wounds, all of which can lead to death. It’s also able to pick up DNA from other species of bacteria in its environment, which can encode antibiotic-resistance genes, Stokes noted.
In order to discover an antibiotic to fight the highly drug-resistant pathogen, Stokes said the researchers tested roughly 7,500 molecules with different structures in a lab to see which of them were able to inhibit the growth of A. baumannii and which of them were not.
Then, he said they trained an AI model to understand what chemical features result in molecules that have A. baumannii activity.
“Once we trained our model, we could then start showing the model a bunch of pictures of brand new molecules that it had never seen, flash card style,” Stokes explained.
“And then, based on what the model learned during training, it would predict which chemicals it thought were antibacterial, and which ones it thought were not.”
After that, the researchers acquired the molecules that the AI model predicted were antibacterial and tested them to see how well they could fight off A. baumannii.
“And that was easy, because instead of having to test thousands of molecules, we were testing a couple hundred,” Stokes said.
“We ended up finding this one molecule that was potent at inhibiting the growth of Acinetobacter in the laboratory — and it was structurally unique relative to every other known antibiotic we have. So this AI model helped us rather efficiently pull out an interesting molecule with antibacterial properties against the bug we were trying to kill.”
Stokes conducted the research with James J. Collins, a professor of medical engineering and science at MIT, McMaster graduate students Gary Liu and Denise Catacutan, as well as Khushi Rathod, a recent McMaster graduate.
Stokes said their research offers proof that the application of AI methods can “meaningfully influence” the discovery of new antibiotics across a whole bunch of different challenging pathogens. And he hopes to use similar methods to discover other antibacterial treatments.
“I'm not saying that AI is a panacea — it's not going to solve all of our problems for us — but it's a very powerful tool in our toolbox with which we use to find new medicines for people.”
After receiving a DNA kit one Christmas from his son-in-law, Hugh McCormick soon discovered that he had six unknown siblings, with whom he shared the same birth parents.
Four years on, the controversy over whether airlines owed refunds to passengers after cancelling hundreds of thousands of flights during the pandemic continues to simmer, aggravated by a sluggish, opaque complaints process.
Many foods fall under the category of ultraprocessed foods, depending on their exact ingredients. This type of food has been studied a lot lately, and the results aren’t great.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
A new study projecting declining rates of cancer cases and deaths in Canada demonstrates the success of prevention and early detection programs, but also highlights areas where more work is needed to save and prolong lives, researchers say.
The star prosecution witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial is set to take the stand Monday with testimony that could help shape the outcome of the first criminal case against an American president.
Brock Boeser had two goals and an assist, and the Vancouver Canucks hung on for a 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 3 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.