Artificial Intelligence has officially added 'virus designer' to its ever-growing list of skills, creating brand new viruses that are fully functional and can replicate in the lab. US researchers at Stanford University pulled this off, marking the first time whole genomes have been successfully designed by AI.

The 16 novel viruses, which infect only bacteria, are harmless to humans - so don't panic, but do raise an eyebrow. The breakthrough is being hailed as a 'very significant turning point' in science, potentially unlocking new ways to treat disease. But experts, ever the buzzkills, warn that AI-designed viruses raise 'urgent' safety and security concerns.

AI tools have already designed new antibiotics, but that's child's play compared to crafting a viable virus from scratch. "This is a next step in the complexity that's designable by generative AI," said Brian Hie, assistant professor at Stanford. "This is the first time generative AI has been used to design a complete genome - it's something that can replicate and have other functions inside cells. This was new territory for us."

The tech works like ChatGPT, but instead of predicting text, it predicts the language of life. The AI models, called Evo1 and Evo2, were trained on genetic codes from viruses, bacteria, plants, and people, then refined to produce bacteriophages - viruses that infect specific bacteria. The researchers picked 302 promising designs, synthesised them, and found 16 that could kill E. coli.

Samuel King, a PhD student, described the moment they realized the phages were working: "We were starting to see these clear spots and it was just extremely exciting." When the results were shared, "the room spontaneously burst into applause," Hie recalled. Cue the confetti.

New phages could lead to treatments for antibiotic-resistant infections. But the breakthrough also hints at AI's ability to design biology beyond nature - known as synthetic biology. Hie argues this could 'massively improve human health' with new drugs and therapies. But Dr. Thomas Inglesby and Dr. Moritz Hanke from Johns Hopkins' Center for Health Security wrote in a commentary that the findings raise 'urgent biosafety and biosecurity questions.' They noted it's no longer a question of whether generative viral genome design will exist, but whether it can be used without 'enabling serious harm.' They advised against pursuing viruses with potential to cause disease.

The researchers took precautions: they excluded viruses that infect complex organisms from training data, used phages instead of human-infecting viruses, and worked in a secure lab. Hie argues existing safeguards go a long way toward 'ensuring that the technology is used for good.'

Viruses aren't alive, and generating living organisms would be a bigger leap. The phage genome is about 5,400 base pairs; the smallest living cell genome is around 500,000; humans have 3 billion. Hie says attempting simple organisms 'would probably be a lot of work, but not impossible,' and they're 'definitely interested in working towards' that. Because why not?

Prof. Marc Güell from Pompeu Fabra University called the study a 'very significant turning point' - 'for the first time in history, we are beginning to design biology on a computer.' He sees possibilities like phages to fight disease, enzymes for genetic disorders, and antibodies for immunotherapy. Prof. Patrick Cai from Manchester Institute of Biotechnology called it an 'important milestone,' noting that 'genome language models are beginning to learn the design principles encoded by evolution, opening the door to AI-assisted genome writing.'

So, AI has now designed viruses. Next up: world domination, or maybe just curing diseases. We'll see which comes first.