Share to ClassroomAI Designs First Viruses That Kill Bacteria
Scientists at Stanford University in the United States have used AI (artificial intelligence) to design new viruses. The viruses are called phages. Phages attack only bacteria, so they can not make people ill. The AI created thousands of designs. The scientists built about 300 of them in the laboratory, but only 16 of them worked. Together, these 16 phages killed two types of E. coli, a common kind of bacteria. The results were published in the journal Science.
The AI tools work like chatbots. But instead of words, they write genetic code— the instructions inside every living thing. The genetic code of a phage is very short— about 5,400 base pairs. The team did not train the AI on viruses that infect people, animals or plants. All the work took place in a safe laboratory.
Doctors in some countries already use phages to treat infections. This is important because many bacteria no longer die from antibiotics— the medicines we use against them. But other scientists are worried. They say the world can now build viruses, but it has no rules to control this. Nobody, they say, should design a virus that can infect people.
