[MEDICINE] - Dr. GenAI VS. The Anti-Resistants
The Synopsis:
Stanford Medicine researchers have developed a machine-learning model, SyntheMol, to create recipes for chemists to utilize in combatting drug-resistant bacteria, Acinetobacter baumannii. SytheMol has been trained on a library of more than 130,000 molecular blocks, and it has generated 25,000 to be used to kill A. baumannii. However, those 25,000 were similar to existing compounds, which may enable the bacteria to become quickly resistant. The researchers filtered through the 25,000 to find 6 compounds that are able to neutralize the bacteria. 1
The Analysis:
SyntheMol is a promising machine-learning model that may revolutionize medicine; its ability to provide a recipe to synthesize working drugs is phenomenal. We can be ahead of drug-resistant bacteria through continual training and fine-tuning the model. However, it has not been used on humans, which is the true test of these drugs’ viability. Additionally, I am concerned about regulation and guardrails around SyntheMol; it is a foundation model that can suffer from hallucinations, biases, cyberattacks, and human abuse.
Hallucinations present fictional or fallacious information as fact, and SyntheMol may create recipes that appear molecularly sound, yet tangibly ineffective. Biases in SyntheMol may create antibiotic-resistant drugs that are effective or ineffective, based on certain groups’ DNA profile. Cyberattacks are detrimental to foundation models, like SyntheMol, because the recipes can be stolen to be used in the black market, undermining medical community. Lastly, human abuse, from users and companies alike. Companies can abuse SyntheMol to create and sell a myriad of drugs to combat the bacteria; these drugs then would be used irresponsibly, which would make the bacteria familiar with the AI - generated compound.
Unfortunately, human abuse would heighten the problem that we have been invested to resolve. Foundation models, like SyntheMol, are steps in the positive direction; however, they face problems that cannot be ignored, and guardrails to protect SyntheMol from itself and others is imperative.
The Endnotes:
1 Rachel Tompa, “Generative AI develops potential new drugs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria”, Stanford Medicine, accessed Apr 11, 2024,
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2024/03/ai-drug-development?sf187660988=1