AI was successfully used to redesign functional viruses for the very first time in 2025. This has resulted in previously unknown virus variants that are specialised to bacteria, known as bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are known for using bacteria to reproduce; the infected bacteria die, thus giving rise to the next generation of viruses, which can then re-infect bacteria. Some properties of the AI viruses are superior to those of the original strain of bacteriophages. In an experiment, the scientists were not only able to alter individual DNA segments, they were able to rewrite and redesign the entire genetic material of the virus.
During the development of the AI viruses, the AI genomic foundation models ‘Evo 1’ and ‘Evo 2’ were trained via deep learning with almost three million genomes from existing bacteriophages, including taking account of complex interactions between genes and their regulation.
These kinds of projects are currently advancing with new AI-driven DNA construction models such as ’Sidewinder’, which are designed to significantly accelerate the synthesis of long DNA sequences, enable correct assembly with very high accuracy and, at the same time, be relatively inexpensive.
After release, bacteriophages can continue to evolve, acquire new properties and, potentially also kill beneficial bacteria that are essential for life. In addition, this approach could also be applied to viruses that spread dangerous diseases.
Publication date / last update:
March 2026