Harkirat Bhullar - Battling Superbugs: A Machine Learning Framework for Identifying Novel Antibiotic Resistance Factors

Harkirat is a veteran of the science fair scene. Last year he attended ISEF with his project on a new method to diagnose autism early, using a computer-assisted tool that looks at behavioral and genetic data with 99.6 percent accuracy. That and his leadership in welcoming newcomers in Canada and an advocate for young people with autism earned him the Duke of Edinburgh International Award in 2017.

The Grade 11 student’s current project combines his interests in computer science and biology by looking at the Antimicrobial resistance problem, where viruses are becoming resistant to antibiotics over time, reducing the effectiveness of standard treatments.

He has created a machine learning framework to identify novel and known antibiotic resistance factors from existing data. The framework reports high accuracies for predicting resistance to five different antibiotics and is the first of its kind and could bring us a step closer to defeating superbugs.

Further reading:

Saskatoon whiz kid wins Duke of Edinburgh Award and is off to the U.K.

Harkirat Bhullar's buddy project is all about the importance of acceptance in school

Sanofi Biogenius: Harkirat Bhulla (Video)