Super Villain Alert! New Tech IDs Drug-Resistant Superbugs.

The human body is made up of around 10 trillion cells. Fascinatingly, we have 10 times more bacterial cells on our bodies which make up the normal microflora. We are also exposed to a vast number of microbes with pathogenic potential that can on occasion break past immune defenses and wreak havoc. When infection strikes, patients usually provide diagnostic labs with a biological sample for them to determine the identity of the offending bacteria. However, it’s not easy for microbiologists to spot a “supervillain” lurking in the sample. These are antibiotic-resistant superbugs — pathogens that infect 2 million people in the U.S. and kill at least 23,000 every year.

A team of biomedical engineers at Duke University has invented a new platform for distinguishing the bad guys from the supervillains, using artificial intelligence. Their technology uses machine learning algorithms to pick up subtle differences in the way antibiotic-resistant bacteria grow under laboratory conditions. This would allow microbiologists to flag superbugs in a fraction of the time it currently takes, with a cost-effective and less labor-intensive procedure. Ultimately, this could revolutionize patient outcomes for those infected with these nasty invaders.

Before this breakthrough, diagnostic labs relied heavily on next-generation sequencing to…