Machine learning is a computational tool used by many biologists to analyze huge amounts of data, helping them to identify potential new drugs. MIT researchers have now incorporated a new feature into these types of machine-learning algorithms, improving their prediction-making ability.
Using this new approach, which allows computer models to account for uncertainty in the data they’re analyzing, the MIT team identified several promising compounds that target a protein required by the bacteria that cause tuberculosis.
This method, which has previously been used by computer scientists but has not taken off in biology, could also prove useful in protein design