October 7, 2025 A McMaster University researcher has used artificial intelligence to identify a new antibiotic compound that could transform treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, marking a major Canadian-led medical breakthrough.
Dr. Jon Stokes, an assistant professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster, led the research in collaboration with Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto. His team trained an AI model to analyze thousands of molecular structures, looking for compounds that could kill harmful gut bacteria linked to inflammatory bowel disease while sparing beneficial microbes.
The AI system identified a promising molecule that was later confirmed in laboratory testing. Stokes said the process took months rather than the years normally required to develop antibiotics. “What AI allows us to do is move at a speed that was previously impossible,” he said in a statement.
The compound has passed preclinical testing and is now being prepared for human trials. Inflammatory bowel disease, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, affects more than 320,000 Canadians — one of the highest per-capita rates in the world.
Researchers say the discovery marks one of the first times an antibiotic has been designed using AI specifically for a chronic inflammatory condition. It also demonstrates how artificial intelligence is moving from data analysis to active drug design, reshaping how scientists discover and test new medicines.
