# Regina Barzilay and Jim Collins win 2026 Pritzker Prize for AI in science

> Original title: Regina Barzilay and Jim Collins win Pritzker Prize for AI and Science Research Excellence for work in AI-enabled antibiotic discovery

- Source: MIT News · AI
- Published: 2026-11-02T05:35:00.000Z
- Bad Influence: https://badinfluence.news/items/p6xzlrqi1kfpfftjzh5u4xrjl
- Original: https://news.mit.edu/2026/regina-barzilay-jim-collins-win-pritzker-prize-ai-and-science-research-excellence-1102

## Summary

Regina Barzilay and James Collins of MIT won the 2026 Pritzker Prize for AI in Science Research Excellence for AI-enabled antibiotic discovery. Their work includes halicin, identified by a deep learning model trained on 2,500 molecules and shown to kill drug-resistant bacteria, and abaucin, a narrow-spectrum antibiotic effective against A. baumannii. The award is given by the University of Chicago in partnership with Caltech.