CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Two MIT professors have won a major international prize for using artificial intelligence to find new antibiotics against drug-resistant bacteria.
Regina Barzilay and James Collins received the 2026 Pritzker Prize for AI in Science Research Excellence, MIT News reported on Nov. 2.
A First for the Prize
The University of Chicago and Caltech award the prize, which was created in 2024. Each award carries $50,000.
Barzilay and Collins are the first team to win it. The University of Chicago announced the 2026 winners on Oct. 19 at its AI+Science conference. Kristin Persson of UC Berkeley won as the individual laureate.
The prize recognizes their joint work in AI-enabled antibiotic discovery that combines deep learning, bioengineering and lab testing to find new drugs against drug-resistant pathogens.
From Halicin to Abaucin
Their best-known result is halicin, described in a 2020 paper in the journal Cell as the first antibiotic discovered by artificial intelligence. It is named after the HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
A deep learning model trained on 2,500 molecules flagged halicin. In tests it killed drug-resistant bacteria including C. difficile, Acinetobacter baumannii and the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. MIT said a process that once took years took a few weeks.
In 2023 the team, working with Jonathan Stokes (now at McMaster University), used machine learning to find abaucin. It targets only A. baumannii, a hospital-acquired bug, which may help limit resistance and spare helpful gut bacteria.
Why It Matters
Drug-resistant infections are a growing global health threat. The University of Chicago cited a projection of 10 million deaths a year by 2050.
Barzilay and Collins now lead the Antibiotics-AI Project at MIT with the nonprofit Phare Bio. It aims to develop seven new classes of antibiotics aimed at seven of the world’s deadliest bacterial pathogens.
Collins said AI is shifting from a tool for finding drugs to a tool for designing them. Barzilay cautioned that “we are still in early stages of drug discovery.”
Note: Neither halicin nor abaucin is an approved medicine. The prize honors the discovery work, and the antibiotics themselves are still in research.
Sources: MIT News (Alex Ouyang), Nov. 2, 2026; University of Chicago Data Science Institute, Oct. 19, 2026.
