In the study, the Stanford researchers used an AI model called Evo to invent DNA for a bacteriophage, a virus that infects bacteria. Unlike a general purpose large language model like ChatGPT, which is trained on written language, Evo was exclusively trained on millions of bacteriophage genomes. They focused on an extensively studied phage called phiX174, which is known to infect strains of the bacteria E. coli.
This is the first time AI systems are able to write coherent genome-scale sequences", says Brian Hie, a computational biologist at Stanford University, California. "The next step is AI-generated life", says Hie, but his colleague Samuel King adds that "a lot of experimental advances need to occur in order to design an entire living organism". The study, by Hie, King and colleagues, was posted on the preprint server bioRxivon 17 September and is not yet peer reviewed,