Scientists have deployed an AI-designed virus

A California startup has used AI to create a virus reportedly capable of fighting off a bacterial infection. The method, if effective, could help people combat disease without worsening antibiotic resistance.

How it works

Researchers at Radical Numerics administered the AI bacteriophage, through an AI model called Omnii-1, to a patient “suffering from a deadly bacterial infection,” with the hope the virus would “kill the microbes causing the infection,” said The New York Times. If successful, the findings could “point to a new way to use AI in medicine.”

Phage therapy existed long before AI. Phages can “target particular bacteria with remarkable specificity, sparing beneficial bacteria such as those in the gut that support digestion,” said a technical paper by Radical Numerics. The process can be time-consuming, though.

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Creating the therapy without AI requires using a “bacterial sample from a patient’s infection” to “screen existing phage collections for effective candidates,” said the Radical Numerics paper. If no known phages are effective, researchers then turn to “additional collections, environmental samples or engineering.”

Using AI instead “can lead to rapid, on-demand generation of phages that meet patient requirements, accelerating the timeline for treatment,” said The Independent.

The future

“If it works, that’s incredible,” Michael Baym, a microbiologist at Harvard University, said to the Times. “My impulse is to be skeptical.” Radical Numerics has not revealed the clinical outcomes of the patient who was given the AI virus, and the study has yet to be peer-reviewed. The company aims to “protect patient confidentiality and maintain the trust” of clinical partners, though it intends to publish the results in the future, Eric Nguyen, the CEO of Radical Numerics, said to the Times.

Widespread phage therapy could help combat antibiotic resistance. Phages “do not infect human cells, and phage therapy is generally considered safe,” said Radical Numerics. “Unlike broad-spectrum antibiotics, phages can target particular bacteria with remarkable specificity.”