"Biology is undergoing a transformation. After centuries of studying life as it evolves naturally, researchers are now using a combination of computation and genome engineering to intervene, generating new proteins and even whole bacteria from scratch. The use of artificial-intelligence tools to design biological components, an approach known as generative biology, is set to turbocharge this area of research. Just last year, scientists used AI-assisted design to produce artificial genes that can be expressed in mammalian cells."
"One of the central themes in Woolfson's book is that, thanks to computational tools, life's patterns (whether the order in which genes are arranged on chromosomes or the physical traits that are encoded by genes) are becoming increasingly predictable and manipulable. This is making it ever simpler for researchers to tinker with an organism's DNA to achieve a desired result - be it correcting a disease-causing mutation, designing proteins that have never existed in nature or engineering organisms that can clean up pollution."
Generative biology combines computation and genome engineering to design and build biological components, including novel proteins, genes, and entire organisms. AI-assisted design enables production of artificial genes that function in mammalian cells and the creation of wholly synthetic viruses. Computational models make genetic patterns and trait encoding increasingly predictable and manipulable, allowing researchers to modify DNA like software to achieve specific outcomes. Applications include correcting disease-causing mutations, designing unprecedented proteins, and engineering organisms for environmental remediation. These capabilities could profoundly reshape biological development, research workflows, and the ecological and medical roles of engineered life.
Read at Nature
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