{"id":11181,"date":"2026-01-07T19:59:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11181"},"modified":"2026-01-07T19:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T01:59:09","slug":"ai-can-now-create-viruses-from-scratch-one-step-away-from-the-perfect-biological-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/01\/07\/ai-can-now-create-viruses-from-scratch-one-step-away-from-the-perfect-biological-weapon\/","title":{"rendered":"AI can now create viruses from scratch, one step away from the perfect biological weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.earth.com\/news\/ai-can-now-create-viruses-from-scratch-one-step-from-perfect-biological-weapon\/\">Earth.com<\/a> Scientists have now used artificial intelligence, computer systems that learn patterns from data, to write complete viral genomes from scratch in the lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In parallel, a Microsoft-led\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.adu8578\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"study, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a>\u00a0showed that AI tools can redesign known toxins so they escape common DNA synthesis safety checks. Those AI-built viruses are bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria rather than humans, making them useful test cases but also vivid warnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-experts-fear-ai-viruses\">Why experts fear AI viruses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The work revealing how AI-designed proteins can slip past genetic safety checks was led by Bruce J. Wittmann at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"Microsoft Research, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Microsoft Research<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He works as a senior applied scientist, focusing on tools that make DNA screening more reliable for laboratories and synthesis companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These projects rely on genome-language models,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.earth.com\/news\/people-are-falling-in-love-with-ai-companions-and-it-could-be-dangerous\/\">AI<\/a>&nbsp;tools that guess plausible stretches of DNA in a sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once trained on thousands of sequences, those models can suggest entirely new genomes that still resemble natural viral families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That creative reach makes it harder for experts to anticipate how a machine-designed virus or protein might behave in real experiments.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earth.com Scientists have now used artificial intelligence, computer systems that learn patterns from data, to write complete viral genomes from scratch in the lab. In parallel, a Microsoft-led\u00a0study\u00a0showed that AI tools can redesign known toxins so they escape common DNA synthesis safety checks. Those AI-built viruses are bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria rather than humans, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11182,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181\/revisions\/11182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}