AI Genome Models Design Working Viruses from Scratch

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