AI-designed virus that kills bacteria

[Axtremus]

The research paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.12.675911v1

The popular press reporting of it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/11/11/ai-designed-viruses-bacteria-life/

A group of Stanford University scientists .. used artificial intelligence to design new viruses capable of killing bacteria.

So ... how do you feel about this new development?

[jon-nyc]

Oh, those two have been fighting for a billion years.

By the way, crispr is an evolved bacterial defense used to kill viruses that we exploited to edit genes.

[Mik]

"It'll be fun", you said. "What could go wrong?", you said.

[LuFins Dad]

As @jon-nyc said, Bacteria and Virus have been violent competitors since forever and scientists have been using bacteriophages since the 1920s. Using AI to help recognize possible phages that can be slightly edited is a very minor development. Of far more relevance is the fact that WaPo is partnering with Perplexity, a search tool heavily tied in to The Daily Wire and Ben Shapiro.

[LuFins Dad]

@jon-nyc said in AI-designed virus that kills bacteria:

Oh, those two have been fighting for a billion years.

By the way, crispr is an evolved bacterial defense used to kill viruses that we exploited to edit genes.

That’s actually the reverse. Which is cool in it’s own way.