“Without antibiotics in the future, modern medicine will collapse”

Can you teach a computer to make antibiotics? This is one of the questions that A Coruña biotechnologists asked themselves. Cesar de la Fuente, and the answer turned out to be positive. At the age of 38, the researcher has received several recognitions for his work, which he is currently developing at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. There he leads a research group focused on using computers to discover new antibiotics that can fight resistant bacteria.

“More than 1 million people die each year from infections caused by bacteria,” De la Fuente assured. And antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on their way to becoming a major threat to human survival, but despite this, investment to find solutions is scarce and there are currently few research groups that devote their work to this matter.

is one of them Machine Biology Group, who leads the American University of A Coruña. His work focuses on the use of computers and artificial intelligence to develop synthetic molecules that can create new antibiotics that fight these resistant bacteria.

Thanks to this research work, the American Chemical Society nominated de la Fuente Best Young Researchers in America In 2020, just a year after he was selected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as one of the world’s ten best innovators under the age of 35 in life and health sciences.

In addition, the Forbes list selected him as one of the 100 most creative Spaniards in 2021, a year in which he was also recognized with. Princess of Aragon Foundation Prize in Scientific Research 2021, On 15 February it was also revealed that he had been selected. The only scientist who will represent the United States during the next five years Global Young AcademyI World Youth Academy (GYA).

Your work focuses on researching new antibiotics that can fight resistant bacteria. Why do bacteria become resistant and what are the dangers of this?

Today, more than 1 million people die every year from bacterial infections. This is already a dramatic reality. More and more patients are arriving at hospitals with infections that cannot be treated with the antibiotics we have available, and the situation is very bad. Current estimates are that by 2050, 10 million people will die per year as a result of these infections. This is the great motivation of my group: to try to do something.

In fact, you are one of the few groups that investigates this area.

This is another problem, and that is that there is very little investment in this sector. It is probably the global health problem that receives the least investment and causes the most deaths in the world. And Big Pharma invests nothing because the market has no viable economic solutions. In that sense we are in a bit of a strange situation, because there is not much innovation and innovation depends on a few academic groups like us who are trying to think about different things.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes this problem and warns that many common infections will once again be life-threatening.

The World Health Organization recognizes that this is a tremendous problem, but there is no investment mechanism. an article in Nature A few days ago I said that there are fewer and fewer researchers in this field because there is no public or private investment, which means there is no gasoline to continue this work, not only in the academic field, but in many areas. But also in the industry sector. So this is a big problem.

“I don’t know how far we would have to go to make the kind of investments that happened with COVID.”

Cesar de la Fuente

And it is not being stopped in time…

If we think a little about history, the first antibiotic was penicillin, which was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. That means we have had antibiotics for less than 100 years. That’s a very short time if you think about the history of humanity. During this time, humans have managed to double our life expectancy, thanks to antibiotics, vaccines, and drinking water. Modern medicine would not be possible without antibiotics that work. Interventions such as surgery, organ transplantation, delivery, chemotherapy treatment or immunosuppression of any patient will not be possible.

All of them can become infected very quickly with bacteria which can later kill them. Without antibiotics in the future, modern medicine as we know it will collapse. It is like a silent epidemic, in the sense that deaths increase every year, but there is no investment. I don’t know how far we would have to go for the kind of investment that happened with COVID, for example, where everyone saw that this was a big problem. Now we have to pay attention to this and focus on this.

Why do bacteria become resistant? Have we misused antibiotics?

This is an important reason, but not the only reason, the large-scale use of antibiotics. For example, when you go to the doctor and you have a viral infection but they don’t know exactly what you have, they may prescribe antibiotics to cure you. The thing is, antibiotics don’t work against viruses. It is the misuse of antibiotics which can lead to excessive exposure of bacteria in our body and they can become resistant to antibiotics.

And then these infections can spread very easily between humans, between animals and humans, between different ecosystems and between humans. Bacteria become resistant when you give them too many antibiotics over a period of time. They replicate in a matter of minutes and during their development develop mutations that help them fight these agents that are dangerous to them. Ultimately, this is natural selection. They try to develop mechanisms so that antibiotics cannot kill them and thus develop resistance. They are trying to survive like everyone else.

“We decided to explore the human body as a source of antibiotics for the first time and we found thousands that had never been described”

Cesar de la Fuente

your work is leading The Machine Biology Group is based on the development of new antibiotics, but using computers. How did this research start?

In my lab we typically try to develop antibiotics against the bacteria that cause the biggest problems today, and we use artificial intelligence methods to do this. A few years ago, when I was at MIT, we asked the fundamental question whether it was possible to teach a computer to make an antibiotic for someone. There we were able to train a computer, an algorithm, to create new antibiotics. What we did was we took the molecules that the computer gave us and synthesized them chemically, and then we tested them against the bacteria we had in the lab and saw whether they died or not. There we saw that one of them was very good at killing bacteria and had clinical relevance. And then we saw that this molecule was also effective in models of preclinical relevance. We published this article in 2018 and it broke new ground.

Then, when I started here at the university, we asked ourselves another fairly basic question, and that was whether we could use computers to speed up the process of discovering new antibiotics. This was motivated by the fact that discovering new preclinical antibiotic candidates with traditional processes takes about six years and costs a lot of money, more than US$2 billion. So we thought that with artificial intelligence we could speed up this process to reduce time and cost.

What results have you achieved? What are you working on now?

We decided to explore the human body for the first time as a source of antibiotics and found thousands of new antibiotics that had never been described. This once again opened up an area where we can use algorithms to explore the biological world and discover new molecules. And then we hypothesized that maybe we could find similar molecules like this during evolution. So that’s when we look at extinct creatures, including Neanderthals and Denisovans, and we find antibiotics there.

Just recently, we have a paper that we just got accepted, where we mined all the extinct organisms known to science as sources of antibiotics, and we were able to find new antibiotics in mammoths and other organisms. Happened. This is a field dedicated to the ability to bring back to life molecules that no longer exist but that can help us deal with the problems we face today, such as antibiotic resistance.

What is the application of these discoveries? Can these be used in people in the medium term?

It’s already more complicated. We are able to speed up this process with AI. In fact, the work which earlier took six years has now turned into hours. In a matter of hours we can discover hundreds or thousands or millions of preclinical candidates. This is what we have achieved till date. Again, predicting what will happen in clinical trials is much more complex and has even more variables, not just scientists.

“Science can be a driving force and in the long run it can return a lot of wealth and economic wealth to a country.”

Cesar de la Fuente

Living in the United States and developing your research work, how do you see the scientific and innovation sector in Spain and Galicia from there?

There is always a need to invest more in science and in Spain it is a fairly small percentage of GDP. It’s the same old message, and it’s a bit heavy-handed to say this much, but it’s true. If you want to do something you have to invest. Why do we get vaccinated against Covid? Because it was invested in science. I am a great believer in the human ability to overcome seemingly impossible problems, I am convinced of this, in fact, there are many historical examples of this. Then you have to make it easier to retain talent and bring talent back home to create an innovation ecosystem.

I would also say that we should put aside our short-term mindset around investing and that it depends on political parties, this is a mistake that makes everything very volatile. Science requires long-term planning of real investment and complete dedication. I believe that people on the right, left, and center can both agree that science is fundamental as the driving force of a country. If Spain wants to be competitive in that sense, they will have to agree. Science can be a driving force and in the long run it can return a lot of wealth and economic wealth to a country.

Being so far away I think you will miss A Coruña too. What do you miss most?

My family, friends, acquaintances… and food, obviously. In fact, the other day I was in Puerto Rico at a convention and I had the Estrella Galicia and I bought a pair… (laughs). But yes, I miss it. A Coruña is a beautiful place, and I love walking along Paseo Marítimo. Although it is true that I go there a lot, once or twice a year.