What are AI-designed viruses and are humans at risk?

What did the researchers do?

The New York Times reported that the research was carried out by scientists from Stanford University and the California-based Arc Institute.

The researchers wanted to find out whether AI could create an entirely new, functional virus from scratch — not one that infects humans, but a bacteriophage, or phage, which infects bacteria.

To do this, the team trained the AI model on genetic sequence from viruses, bacteria, plants, and humans. By learning recurring DNA patterns found in nature the model was able to generate entirely new viral genome designs.

The researchers then selected around 300 AI-generated genomes and chemically synthesised their DNA in the laboratory. Of those 300 designs, 16 produced fully functional bacteriophages.

The scientists introduced the newly created phages to their target bacterium, E. coli C, where they successfully infected the bacteria, demonstrating varying levels of effectiveness.

Describing the newly generated viruses, the Science paper stated: “The generated phages were different from any known natural phages, exhibiting de novo mutations, divergent genes and regulatory elements, and variable genome lengths.”

The study concluded that:

– A mixture of AI-designed phages rapidly killed antibiotic- resistant bacteria.
– A comparable mixture of naturally occurring phages failed to achieve the same result.

Does it affect humans?

The study said that the newly AI-designed viruses are not a threat to humans. According to The New York Times, the newly created viruses are similar to Phi X-174, a naturally occurring bacteriophage that infects only bacteria and cannot infect humans.

What questions does the study raise?

While the latest development demonstrates the potential of AI in synthetic biology, it also raises concerns about biosecurity.

Experts claimed that the same technology may be capable of designing beneficial viruses, in the future and be misused to create dangerous biological agents, ranging from lethal pathogens to potential pandemics.