The chatGPT-like model learns on its own to devise new proteins and genetic sequences
ChatGPT, the famous artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, can summarize Moby Dick, write computer code, and serve up a recipe for chicken à la king because it has much of the written information on the internet at its silicon fingertips. What if it could do the same for DNA?
That’s the advance behind a new study published today in Science. Researchers describe an AI model, schooled on billions of lines of genetic sequences, that can deduce how bacterial and viral genomes operate and use that information to design new proteins and even whole microbial genomes. The model, called Evo, could help scientists probe evolution, investigate diseases, develop new treatments, and potentially answer various biomedical questions.
“This work is extremely significant,” says computational biologist Arvind Ramanathan of Argonne National Laboratory, who wasn’t connected to the study. The tests the authors put Evo through, he says, provide “a great showcase of applications” for the AI.
