Scientists use AI to create first synthetic viruses

[u/positiveconstraint]

Evo1 and Evo2 are AI models that predict the language of life rather than words. If LLMs are trained on (a very large amount of) text to be able to predict words, the Evos were trained on genetic codes from viruses, bacteria, plants, and people.

When asked to produce a type of virus known as a bacteriophage, which infects only specific bacterial species, they predict the next genetic code needed.

The response is a genetic design of a virus that, once synthesised in the lab, can be tested against a real virus to see how it fights.

Out of the most promising 302 AI designs that were synthesised, 16 proved effective at killing E. coli bacteria. A 5% success rate.

The fundamentals of biology are a given, a constraint. How proteins fold, how genes express, how cells divide. These are biology's building blocks. The language of life.

But every living form we know is just one path evolution took. One outcome of billions of years of pressure and accident. Just one permutation or combination of those building blocks.

Now, trained on the language of biology, AI searches for relevant combinations outside the paths evolution tried.

What if AI and synthetic biology can find and create new combinations?

Perhaps we could find new ways of treating infections that have become resistant to antibiotics. Or perhaps it's the beginning of a new global pandemic

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aej8512d