If you are passionate about Doctor House you know what a rare case is presented every time (if you get from House is always rare): she sends her team to break into the patient’s home and collects every possible pathogen. It was already metagenomic, but handmade.
Ai is also revolutionizing the metagenomic, that is, the study of the DNA of all the microbes present in an environment. Analysis of bacteria, viruses, mushrooms, i.e. huge quantities of genetic data that previously required years, become faster with the new machines learning models. Much faster.
For example, before the AIs the human microbioma project, which lasted from 2007 to 2016, was already working for the microbes of the human body, which is fundamental to understand their role on our health. For any metagenomic study, years or months needed, now the same data can be analyzed in days or hours. It is not science fiction, metagenomics is also used in Italian hospitals. Cases of infection in children affected by septic shock due to a bacterium of the trout, or an immunosuppressed child infected with a mushroom of the wheat, were resolved by the Department of Microbiology and diagnostics of immunology of the Bambino Gesù hospital.
In short, the combination of metagenomics and the makes biology (and medicine) an increasingly predictive science. Also important to counteract the excessive use of antibiotics (when there is no need) that we make, and increase antibiotic-resistant bacteria (big problem if we have a bacterium that does not react to antibiotics). Mind you, I am the first: at the first cough, antibiotic (when a pathology is viral and non -bacterial the antibiotic is useless), but often even the basic doctors, for work overload or patient pressure, prescribe them, “for safety”. It must also be said that maybe we are lazy and rather than making a buffer we send down a tablet.
However, here too the solution can come from science (and who otherwise?): Canadian scientists, analyzing the ground, have discovered a microorganism that produces a very powerful antibiotic, lariocidine, and is not even toxic. The study, published in Nature, is the work of experts from McMaster University led by Gerry Wright.
In short, we are going towards a future in which we could take care of everything (other researchers have been working for some time to block cell aging, others for their regeneration), there is a single problem: do soon.