The first genomes designed by a model
A genome language model designed bacteriophages from scratch: of 285 synthesised candidates, 16 proved viable and killed E. coli, including strains resistant to the natural phage.
Why it matters
A model wrote the genome of an organism that then lived, for the first time: not predicting a structure but composing a sequence that works.
The model was trained on millions of DNA sequences and then fine-tuned on about 15 thousand viral genomes of the Microviridae family. It generated thousands of variants modelled on the phage PhiX174, of which the researchers synthesised 285 and tested them in the laboratory. Sixteen worked, and mixtures of them suppressed strains resistant to the original phage. The work opens a route to phage therapy against antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and at the same time raises biosecurity directly: the same capability does not distinguish which genome it is asked to design.