ML uncovers unknown features of multi-drug-resistant pathogen

Even though the model built with ADAGE was relatively simple, it had no trouble learning which sets of P. aeruginosa genes tend to work together or in opposition. To the researchers’ surprise, the ADAGE system also detected differences between the main laboratory strain of P. aeruginosa and strains isolated from infected patients. “That turned out to be one of the strongest features of the data”.

“We expect that this approach will be particularly useful to microbiologists researching bacterial species that lack a decades-long history of study in the lab. Microbiologists can use these models to identify where the data agree with their own knowledge and where the data seem to be pointing in a different direction … and to find completely new things in biology that we didn’t even know to look for.”