On searching antimicrobial agents among natural products:Fighting against Superbug

2022 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K12043
• Research Institution: Nara Institute of Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: AMIN MD.ALTAFUL 奈良先端科学技術大学院大学, 先端科学技術研究科, 准教授 (30379531)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: Antibiotic compounds / Natural products / Machine learning / Jamu formulas / TCM formulas

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

Antimicrobial agents are drugs that can kill microorganisms or stop their growth. massive imprudent usage of antibiotics in clinical practice for both human and livestock has resulted in resistance of bacteria to antimicrobial agents. Our research focused on finding natural antibiotic compounds based on traditional medicine formulas. We applied various machine learning algorithms such as Lasso regression, Random Forest and XGBoost, deep learning to Jamu and TCM formulas aiming to finding natural antibiotic plants and compounds. Based on our research in the current fiscal year, we published two papers in journals with reasonable impact factors. One of the papers published in the journal Antibiotics (Impact Factor 4.94) identified antibiotic plants based on Jamu formulas. Another paper published in the journal Methods (Impact Factor 4.647) found out antibacterial natural compounds based on TCM formulas. We also published two papers in IEEE conferences.

Current Status of Research Progress

2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.

Reason

Our PhD students Mr. Ahmad Kamal Nasution and Mr. Gao Pei helped me a lot for conducting this research

Strategy for Future Research Activity

Currently we are working on finding natural antibiotic compounds based on Unani formulas. Next, we want make comparison between the results we obtained based Jamu, TCM and Unani formulas. We will make a comprehensive list of promising natural antibiotic compounds and by applying unsupervised clustering we will try to identify the type of mechanisms of actions against bacteria.

Causes of Carryover

We are currently writing a paper on finding natural antibiotic compounds based on Unani formulas. We need the money for publishing this work in a conference or a journal.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] On Finding Natural Antibiotics based on TCM Formulae (2023)
  • Author(s): Gao, P., Nasution, A. K., Yang, S., Chen, Z., Ono, N., Kanaya, S., & Altaf-Ul-Amin, M. D.
  • Journal Title: Methods Volume: 214 Pages: 35-45
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2023.04.001
  • Peer Reviewed / Int'l Joint Research
• [Journal Article] Prediction of Potential Natural Antibiotics Plants Based on Jamu Formula Using Random Forest Classifier (2022)
  • Author(s): Nasution, Ahmad Kamal, Sony Hartono Wijaya, Pei Gao, Rumman Mahfujul Islam, Ming Huang, Naoaki Ono, Shigehiko Kanaya, and Md Altaf-Ul-Amin
  • Journal Title: Antibiotics Volume: 11(9) Pages: 1199
  • DOI: 10.3390/antibiotics11091199
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Novel Methods and Tool for Clustering of Simple and Bipartite Graphs: Applications in Ecology and Computational Biomedical Research (2023)
  • Author(s): Md. Altaf-Ul-Amin
  • Organizer: University of Texas in Dallas
  • Invited
• [Presentation] Cancer subtyping via embedded unsupervised learning on transcriptomics data (2022)
  • Author(s): Yang Ziwei
  • Organizer: 44th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC22)
  • Int'l Joint Research
• [Presentation] Novel Methods and Tool for Clustering of Simple and Bipartite Graphs: Applications in Ecology and Computational Biomedical Research (2022)
  • Author(s): Md. Altaf-Ul-Amin
  • Organizer: 2022 12th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Technology (ICBET 2022) April 20-23, 2022|Tokyo, Japan
  • Invited