Regina Barzilay, Jim Collins, are recipients of the 2026 Pritzker Prize for AI in Science Research Excellence
October 29, 2026
IMES
Established in 2024, the award to Regina Barzilay, the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of AI and Health, and James J. Collins, Termeer Professor Medical Engineering and Science, became the first time that a team was awarded the Pritzker Prize. Barzilay, an associate faculty member of IMES, and Collins, a core faculty member, were recognized for their "pioneering collaboration applying deep learning to antibiotic discovery and drug design, one of the most consequential demonstrations of AI’s potential to address a global health crisis."
The announcement of the award said that: "Together, Barzilay and Collins have used deep learning to discover and design structurally novel antibiotic compounds effective against some of the world’s most dangerous drug-resistant pathogens. Their Antibiotics-AI Project at MIT, in partnership with nonprofit Phare Bio, aims to develop seven new classes of antibiotics targeting seven of the world’s deadliest bacterial pathogens, a potential turning point in addressing antimicrobial resistance, which is projected to cause 10 million deaths annually by 2050."
In addition, the announcement quoted Collins, who "noted the possibilities AI has opened for antibiotic research. He said, “AI has significantly expanded the realm of possibility in life sciences. In the case of antibiotics, it’s allowed us to search for entirely new classes of compounds, understand how they work much faster, and even design new antibiotics from scratch.”
Presented at the third University of Chicago and Caltech Conference on AI+Science, "the prize recognizes outstanding academic contributions that jointly advance artificial intelligence and the natural sciences or engineering."
Kristin Persson (University of California, Berkeley; Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering), was also the recipient of an award for "pioneering data-driven materials design through first-principles computational methods and machine learning, and for founding and leading The Materials Project as a transformative global open-science resource."