Artificial Intelligence used to design brand new viruses
www.bbc.com
Scientists made 16 successful viruses that had their genetic code designed by artificial intelligence.
  • big_spoon@lemmygrad.ml
    2·
    2 days ago

    a type of virus, known as a bacteriophage, which infect only specific species of bacteria

    there’s a mission on hitman: world of assassination about this…the idea is that this was something bad

  • ghost_of_faso3@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    10·
    3 days ago

    I cant wait for new manmade horrors beyond our comprehension as viruses somehow get encoded with redditors personalities.

          • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
            5·
            2 days ago

            If you mean the emojis, probably meant to represent “um, actually” or “well, actually” - the thing where one person corrects another in a condescending or egotistical way, usually associated with people making a whole identity out of being the “smartest person in the room”.

            Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with correcting something that is incorrect. But if you combine it with how smarmy and arrogant western chauvinists can get about their position in the world, it can get annoying.

    • SovietCollie@lemmygrad.ml
      15·
      3 days ago

      Here’s some redditor’s summary of the original research paper that this article is referencing.

      It kind of is. Read the original research paper and not some click bait headline: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec2657

      The researchers used genomic language models (LLM equivalents applied to genomes) to map out new cell structures and protein targets for a bacteria-phage (virus that targets bacteria) that could infect and kill e-coli.

      With or without AI this is possible to do. AI just speeds up the process and makes it easier. Phages have a lot of down sides over antibiotics, but have one major upside in that they don’t spread antibiotics around and make resistant bacterial strains. If we could make custom or semi-custom phages for phage therapy we could legitimately use as an immune booster if nothing else. Weaken the bacteria so the immune system can actually fight it off. Or amplify the effects of antibiotics that might be weakened my a resistant or semi-resistant strain.

      It might even make viral therapy against cancer cells more viable. A major problem with that currently is virus that can infect cancer tend to infect other normal cells too. But a highly targeted virus could, in theory, select for a specific cell line created by cancer.

      This is what we need now, in the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria. This is good research.

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