Scientists are using AI to design new viruses. Should they be?
Research is outpacing regulation to govern artificial-intelligence-designed biology
By Stephanie Pappas edited by Claire Cameron
Abstract image of an AI core formed from particles.
Scientists have crossed a threshold in artificial intelligence: using the technology, researchers have created real viruses that are entirely new to science. The achievement is impressive and raises obvious fears: Could AI, in the not-too-distant future, make viruses more deadly than those seen in nature?
The viruses the researchers created are not Frankenstein’s monsters. They are more than 90 percent similar to certain existing bacteria-infecting viruses, or bacteriophages. They are dangerous only to Escherichia coli. And they were designed by an AI model that wasn’t trained on viruses that could infect plants or animals.
But these safety measures, while welcome, were largely voluntary. The research, which published last week in Science, showed that AI-enabled biotechnology is moving much faster than regulation.
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“The frontier is moving very quickly,” says Toby Webster, a program director at Sentinel Bio, a nonprofit that researches biotech safeguards.
In fact, the Science paper describing the AI-designed bacteriophages is already old. It was first published as a preprint on the bioRxiv server in September 2025. The model is open-source and has already been fine-tuned for other tasks.
With additional training, future AI models might suggest totally new gene sequences for viruses or bacteria that evolution has not yet discovered, says Doni Bloomfield, an associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, who focuses on biosecurity. Future AI agents might also be able to coach nonexperts on the finer points of biological design—enabling a suite of possible bad actors to create novel bioweapons.
“We should be very cautious about extending this work into viruses that can infect more complex life,” Bloomfield says. “I don’t think we are at the point where we should be doing that without safeguards.”
Science isn’t starting from scratch when it comes to biosecurity. There are regulations around laboratory safety, biological research, genetic modifications and work with dangerous pathogens, says Filippa Lentzos, an associate professor who studies biosecurity at King’s College London.
“The challenge,” she says, “is to connect that existing governance to the new upstream capability to design biology digitally.”
The kind of research that AI might enable carries a lot of promise. New bacteriophages could hunt down and target antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or novel viral “shells” could be used to safely deliver gene therapies or other treatments for diseases. AI models could also reveal new information about how the genome organizes itself, Bloomfield says.
Source: Read the original article on www.scientificamerican.com
