- For the first time, artificial intelligence has designed complete, functional viral genomes from scratch.
Oh dear.
Stanford University and Arc Institute researchers used generative AI models to produce 16 novel bacteriophages that successfully infect and kill bacteria in the lab.
Officials insist the viruses "pose no threat to people," yet biosecurity experts are already sounding the alarm that the same technology opens the door to inventing dangerous pathogens.
The breakthrough, published in the journal Science, marks the first time generative AI has written entire viable viral genomes.
Researchers trained genome language models known as Evo 1 and Evo 2 on millions of natural genetic sequences. They then tasked the systems with designing complete bacteriophage genomes based on the well-studied ?X174 template that infects E. coli.
Of 302 synthesized designs, 16 proved fully functional: they assembled into virus particles, replicated inside bacterial cells, and in some cases outperformed the natural virus, even overcoming bacterial resistance when used as a cocktail.
Oh dear.
Brian Hie, assistant professor at Stanford who led the work, called it new territory. "This is a next step in the complexity that's designable by generative AI, this is the first time generative AI has been used to design a complete genome, it's something that can replicate and have other functions inside cells... this was new territory for us," he told the BBC.
The team deliberately excluded genetic data from viruses capable of infecting complex organisms and conducted the work in a secure laboratory. The resulting phages target only specific bacteria.
Patrick Cai, a synthetic biologist at the University of Manchester not involved in the study, called it "an important milestone."
Yet the same experts who celebrate the medical potential for phage therapies against antibiotic-resistant infections are issuing blunt warnings.
In an accompanying commentary in Science, Dr. Thomas Ingles
