AI Genome Models Generate Functional Viruses from Scratch

Arc Institute and Stanford researchers used genome language models Evo 1 and Evo 2 to design novel viruses from scratch, producing 16 functional bacteriophages — some outperforming the natural reference strain — in a study published in Science on August 6, 2026. The models, trained on trillions of nucleotides, generated roughly 700,000 candidate genomes; 16 proved viable.