Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can successfully predict whether a patient is at risk of developing a serious, and possibly life-threatening infection after surgery. Staphylococcus epidermidis is an ubiquitous coloniser of healthy human skin, but it is also a notorious source of serious infections with indwelling devices and surgical procedures such as hip replacements. It has not been known whether all members of the Staphylococcus epidermidis population colonising the skin asymptomatically are capable of causing such infections, or if some of them have a heightened tendency to do so when they enter either the bloodstream or a deep tissue. Scientists from the Aalto University and the University of Helsinki in Finland combined large-scale population genomics and in vitro measurements of immunologically relevant features of these bacteria. They were then able to use machine learning to successfully predict the risk of developing a serious, and possibly life-threatening infection from the genomic features of a bacterial isolate. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications , opens the door for future technology where high-risk genotypes are identified proactively when a person is to undergo a surgical procedure, which has high potential to reduce the burden of infections caused by S epidermidis .
