AI-DESIGNED PHAGES

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

Arc Institute and Stanford University researchers have created the first viable genomes using generative AI. They created 16 bacteriophages using fine-tuned versions of both Evo 1 and Evo 2, models freely available on Hugging Face. Their work offers a blueprint for the design of diverse synthetic bacteriophages and lays a foundation for the generative design of useful living systems at the genome scale. The research may present some risks, but at the moment, using AI to make synthetic genomes costs a great deal at both the design and construction stages and isn't viable for most companies.