MIT researchers win 2026 Pritzker Prize for AI antibiotic work

The researchers’ first major breakthrough came in 2020 with the identification of halicin, the first antibiotic discovered by an AI system. A deep learning model trained on 2,500 molecules identified halicin, which was originally studied as a diabetes drug. Testing showed it could kill resistant bacteria such as Clostridium difficile and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This process, which typically takes years, was completed in just a few weeks.

In 2023, the team identified abaucin, a narrow-spectrum antibiotic effective against Acinetobacter baumannii. Collins noted that this shift from using AI as a discovery tool to a design tool opens new frontiers for drug development. Barzilay emphasized that while AI can automate parts of the pipeline, building realistic models of human biology remains a significant challenge.