A team of researchers from Stanford University and the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, California say they’ve created viruses with AI-designed DNA that can target and kill specific bacteria.
And these aren’t just simulated possibilities — they’re real and already slaying germs in the lab.
The work, published in a new study awaiting peer-review, is a compelling testament to the usefulness of large language models in bioengineering applications, the authors say.
“This is the first time AI systems are able to write coherent genome-scale sequences,” senior author Brian Hie, a Stanford computational biologist, told Nature. “The next step is AI-generated life.”
Coauthor Samuel King, however, cautioned that a “lot of experimental advances need to occur in order to design an entire living organism