The first synthetic virus was obtained, with the help of AI.

The first lab-built virus , whose genetic material was designed on a computer with the help of artificial intelligence , has been created. It belongs to the bacteriophage family, viruses specialized in attacking bacteria, and has demonstrated the ability to kill strains of the bacterium Escherichia coli. The result was obtained in the United States by a Stanford University team led by computational biologist Brian Hie, and is online on the bioRxiv platform, which hosts articles that have not yet been reviewed by the scientific community. "This is the first time that artificial intelligence systems have been able to write coherent sequences on a genomic scale," Hie observes in an interview published on the journal Nature website. "The next step ," he adds, "will be life generated by artificial intelligence ." His colleague Samuel King, first author of the article, notes, however, that " numerous studies will be necessary before designing an entire living organism." The most realistic goal at the moment is to design viruses capable of fighting dangerous bacteria , such as those resistant to antibiotics , but even this will take time. It is certain, however, as the researchers themselves write in the article, that using AI in experiments like these helps address the great complexity of biological functions , considering that these do not depend on single genes, but on interactions encoded by entire genomes. The Stanford group was the first to want to test whether AI models specialized in genomics are also capable of designing biological systems. Until now, no one had ever tried, and the answer was positive. The models used are called Evo 1 and Evo 2, and are specialized in analyzing and generating entire DNA , RNA , and protein sequences . The first step was to provide them with a template , that is, a sequence from which to start to generate a genome with the desired characteristics. Then the AI-designed DNA was synthesized and inserted into bacteria , in which the viruses multiplied . More than 300 viable bacteriophages were obtained, from which 16 were selected . The latter demonstrate the " potential utility " for future therapies against "rapidly evolving bacterial pathogens . This work," the researchers note, "provides a template for the design of diverse synthetic bacteriophages and, more generally, lays the foundation for the generative design of useful living systems on a genome-wide scale."