ON AUGUST 6: Science published a paper on viruses designed by AI. The model is called Evo, and it predicts the next letter of DNA the way ChatGPT predicts the next word. After tuning on one small bacteriophage, phi X 174, which only infects E. coli, it wrote about 700,000 candidate genomes, and the team built roughly 300 of the best and dropped them into bacteria. The result carries a hopeful side for antibiotic resistance and a serious one for biosecurity, and the team never trained Evo on anything that infects humans. I would watch who owns the design platform. IP lawyers are already advising phage companies to protect both the platform and individual phages.I follow stories and companies like this as part of my work at Drake Foundry. Follow if you are interested in innovation.
Sources: Science, Claire Zau (@zauey), Stanford News, Arc Institute