Jim Collins, Termeer Professor at MIT, unveils his AI-powered project that has discovered several new antibiotics, effective against resistant strains and often employing entirely new mechanisms of action. He details how their refined multi-step AI process, even with small datasets and modest compute, can efficiently screen vast chemical spaces to identify promising drug candidates. This breakthrough offers a realistic and affordable path to tackling the staggering antibiotic resistance crisis, which currently claims over a million lives annually. Collins argues this practical application of AI represents a transformative win for humanity, often overlooked amidst the focus on AGI.

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CHAPTERS:

(00:00 ) About the Episode

(04:30 ) Introducing Jim Collins

(05:26 ) Antibiotic Resistance Primer

(14:04 ) The Antibiotic Market Failure

(18:45 ) AI Discovers Halicin (Part 1)

(18:51 ) Sponsors: AssemblyAI Ad 1 | Claude

(22:11 ) AI Discovers Halicin (Part 2)

(30:58 ) The Economics of Discovery

(39:10 ) Inside the AI Architecture (Part 1)

(39:17 ) Sponsors: Linear | AGNTCY | Shopify

(43:47 ) Inside the AI Architecture (Part 2)

(01:00:13 ) Human-in-the-Loop Discovery

(01:12:12 ) Novel Mechanisms & Properties

(01:19:02 ) Future Applications & Risks

(01:27:01 ) A Call to Action

(01:28:04 ) Outro