AI can now design functional viruses – not the computer kind, either
The team, led by Stanford chemical engineering professor Brian Hie, posted a paper to the preprint service bioRxiv Wednesday that details their use of the Evo 1 and Evo 2 models from the Arc Institute (Hie contributed to the design of both Evo models). According to their findings, and Hie's comments to The Register, this is the first time an AI-generated genome has been produced in the real world and found functional in tests. Bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria cells, have been widely studied since their discovery in the early 20th century.
- ▪The team, led by Stanford chemical engineering professor Brian Hie, posted a paper to the preprint service bioRxiv Wednesday that details their use of the Evo 1 and Evo 2 models from the Arc Institute (Hie contributed to the design of both
- ▪According to their findings, and Hie's comments to The Register, this is the first time an AI-generated genome has been produced in the real world and found functional in tests.
- ▪Bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria cells, have been widely studied since their discovery in the early 20th century.
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| Original publisher | theregister |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2025/09/18/ai-can-now-design-more-deadly-virus-genomes/1489318 |
| Publication time | Thu, 06 Aug 2026 19:44:43 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-08-06T19:50:42.679Z |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); Science AI can now design functional viruses – not the computer kind, either Inject this synthetic phage into E. coli and it kills better than the real thing Brandon Vigliarolo Brandon Vigliarolo Published thu 18 Sep 2025 // 18:02 UTC A group of Stanford bioengineers claim that they've created synthetic bacteriophages using AI-generated designs that not only work in the real world, but are far more infectious than their naturally-occurring counterparts.
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