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Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

euronews.com

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Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#71

Post by wolverine876 »

Jensson wrote: post #57
wolverine876 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see what social media has wrought? How can you trust the herd mentality? Is there a greater source of misinformation, disinformation, and ignorance in the history of humanity? (No.) Regarding things I already know - or even OPs I've read but which most commenters have not - HN is mostly misinformation. I participate in HN, obviously - only because I've found nothing better (a complement to it, in a way, and ma…

I'm not sure what you mean? There are commenters here who are wrong, yes. But the discussion in aggregate usually have some people who are correct. Those people are missing in these articles, these articles are mostly just a person who is wrong about a lot of things. There are some nuggets of truths in them but you can't trust any sensational headlines to be representative of what actually happened. If you are saying…

How do you know which comments are accurate? Plenty of research shows that, without expertise yourself, people are awful at that judgment.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#72

Post by devilbunny »

marcusverus wrote: post #30
Waterluvian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires a socialized solution: to fund it for future needs rather than for profits.

A government which can't regulate effectively can't be trusted with a monopoly. Anyway, how does holding antibiotics in reserve help anything? Why let the bugs evolve resistance to one antibiotic at a time, rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance? Was this strategy designed by the bad guys in a Jacky Chan movie?

> how does holding antibiotics in reserve help anything?

If they have novel mechanisms of action, quite a lot. If it's just another entrant in a class of antibiotics for which we have numerous drugs (and thus resistances) already, probably not as much.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#73

Post by throwawaymaths »

kbelder wrote: post #47
throwawaymaths wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An antibiotic is an antibiotic whether or not it would kill a patient too.

Fair, but finding new antibiotics then becomes trivial.

Isolating a new antibiotic (even if it wouldn't work on humans) is typically worth a chemistry PhD. Call me when you get it.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#74

Post by PlasmonOwl »

29athrowaway wrote: post #53
hackernewds wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Discovered" like penicillin? It irks me when it's presented as accidental, when it does go through testing after

Penicillin was also accidental? I don't understand the point.

Maybe he conflates discovery with accident. Materials science searches chemical space and makes discoveries. There is no accident in that kind of discovery?

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#75

Post by hedora »

wolverine876 wrote: post #70
timr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you see the irony? What better describes social media? Social media is not one thing. You've got multiple people in this thread who know the subject, in detail, telling you that the headline is wrong. These aren't youtube video comments. > Ironically, that's what the OP is about; that was the point of their research. Yes, I know. That's why I wrote that. The research is about a relatively obscure technical probl…

> Social media is not one thing. Fair enough, but science journalism is not just one thing. > You've got multiple people in this thread who know the subject, in detail, telling you that the headline is wrong. That appears on every HN discussion of anything. It's not a signal of wrongness or rightness, any more than the color of the banner at the top - if it's orange, the OP must be obviously wrong!

It turns out there’s usually a group of HN commenters that specialize in whatever the topic is and are more qualified to discuss the technical contributions than the person that paraphrased a university press release.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#76

Post by pshirshov »

marcusverus wrote: post #30
Waterluvian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires a socialized solution: to fund it for future needs rather than for profits.

A government which can't regulate effectively can't be trusted with a monopoly. Anyway, how does holding antibiotics in reserve help anything? Why let the bugs evolve resistance to one antibiotic at a time, rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance? Was this strategy designed by the bad guys in a Jacky Chan movie?

> rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance?

You want to preserve your own bacterias, you won't survive without them. Combinations are effective, but they might kill too much of your friendly gut bacterias.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#77

Post by UncleOxidant »

fasterik wrote: post #69
UncleOxidant wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good example of the limits of capitalism.

I think capitalism has plenty of solutions for this. We can allocate government funding for research, pass new laws that create tax incentives, create prize funds to incentivize development of specific drugs, or make advanced market commitments where institutions commit to buying a portion of a certain type of drug after it's produced. The underlying problem is the lack of political will and cooperation to implement…

> I think capitalism has plenty of solutions for this. We can allocate government funding for research ...

Market-driven capitalism without any government incentives (or disincentives) has no answer here. You just proposed something that's not market-driven capitalism. That the government should get involved in some way to fund and incentivize what it deems to be good for society in the long run. The market on it's own can't do this.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#78

Post by bilsbie »

dvh wrote: post #4

I've been under the impression that we don't have new antibiotics because it is not economically viable. When you invent new weight loss drug you can sell millions of pills to anyone. If you invent new antibiotic it is immediately classified as "reserve antibiotic" and the sale is restricted.

The headline says this is the first one in 60 years so I’m not sure how you can suggest this pattern.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#79

Post by fasterik »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #77
fasterik wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think capitalism has plenty of solutions for this. We can allocate government funding for research, pass new laws that create tax incentives, create prize funds to incentivize development of specific drugs, or make advanced market commitments where institutions commit to buying a portion of a certain type of drug after it's produced. The underlying problem is the lack of political will and cooperation to implement…

> I think capitalism has plenty of solutions for this. We can allocate government funding for research ... Market-driven capitalism without any government incentives (or disincentives) has no answer here. You just proposed something that's not market-driven capitalism. That the government should get involved in some way to fund and incentivize what it deems to be good for society in the long run. The market on it's o…

It's a straw man to define capitalism in such a way that anything involving a government doesn't count as capitalism. Unless they're radical anarcho-capitalists, most people would agree that you need some sort of stable society with laws and regulations for markets to function correctly.

Re: Scientists discover new antibiotics using AI

#80

Post by bakedoatmeal »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #36
marcusverus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A government which can't regulate effectively can't be trusted with a monopoly. Anyway, how does holding antibiotics in reserve help anything? Why let the bugs evolve resistance to one antibiotic at a time, rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance? Was this strategy designed by the bad guys in a Jacky Chan movie?

A government which can't regulate effectively can't be trusted with a monopoly. If only the world were as simple. But it isn't, and everyone knows that those with power (in general, governments) will never be regulated effectively enough for everyone - but that doesn't make them never to be trusted with monopoly, nor does it mean that the government's monopoly is bad. Sorry, I don't really want private militaries nor…

Antibiotics harm the host as well. Giving grandma 4 antibiotics to treat a typical case of pneumonia goes against “do no harm”. Not to mention the added cost of prescribing more antibiotics.

When we can safely give multiple therapies without harming the patient, we do it. Standard HIV treatment uses 4 different drugs to raise the evolutionary hurdle for the virus.

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