AI used to create viruses not found in nature for first time
US researchers say they created 16 viruses using AI, prompting hopes for medical advances and concerns about misuse. US researchers have announced the creation of
US researchers say they created 16 viruses using AI, prompting hopes for medical advances and concerns about misuse. US researchers have announced the creation of new viruses using artificial intelligence, a scientific first that raises hopes for advances in medical treatments while also stoking anxiety about the dangers of the frontier technology. In findings published in the journal Science, researchers at Stanford University and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard said they used a naturally occurring phage – a type of virus that infects bacteria – as a template to generate thousands of genomes with AI. The researchers chemically synthesised nearly 300 of the genomes and tested them in laboratory conditions, resulting in 16 “viable” viruses, according to the findings published on Thursday. In tests, a mixture of the synthetic viruses proved more effective at killing E coli bacteria than the naturally occurring viruses, according to the findings. “Our approach expands what synthetic genomics can achieve alongside methods such as directed evolution and rational engineering, lays out a path for generating adaptive and resilient phage therapies against rapidly evolving pathogens, and establishes a foundation for the generative design of larger, more complex genomes,” the researchers wrote in Science.
Brian Hie and Samuel King, two of the paper’s authors, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto and Toronto General Hospital who was not involved in the study, said the research raised both hopeful and concerning implications. “AI-designed viruses could have some potential benefits, such as the creation of targeted bacteriophages that could possibly help us tackle antibiotic-resistant infections in new ways,” Bogoch told Al Jazeera. “But that same ability to design whole, functional viruses could easily become a serious biosecurity risk if applied to harmful pathogens, so strong guardrails, screening, and oversight need to grow alongside the technology,” Bogoch said. Fatemeh Vafaee, a professor at the UNSW School of Biotech & Biomolecular Science in Sydney, said that while the study itself posed no tangible risk to humans as phages can only infect bacteria, the techniques involved could conceivably be used for harm. “So it’s less ‘should we worry about this virus’ and more ‘AI can now do this at all,’ which is why researchers are already calling for stronger biosecurity oversight, as a forward-looking precaution rather than a response to any actual danger here,” Vafaee told Al Jazeera.
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