Like Midjourney but for new species

February 20, 2025 4:31 AM

Have you been looking for an AI Text-To-Genome-Sequence DNA generator? I got U! Arc Institute is dropping a new AI model trained on over 100.000 species. They claim it can "identify patterns in gene sequences across disparate organisms that experimental researchers would need years to uncover".
posted by svenni (7 comments total)

Article from Asimov press ; Evo 2 Can Design Entire Genomes

posted by lalochezia at 4:42 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Life, uh, finds a way?
posted by drowsy at 6:03 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]

This is the kind of AI I can get behind.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:03 AM on February 20

Heck, I spend most of the 1990s doing "identify patterns in gene sequences across disparate organisms " spitting out a number of papers about synonymous codon usage which works on the fact that several different triplets of DNA code for the same amino acid when they are translated into protein. You'd expect (null hypothesis) that each of these options would be used uniformly or randomly, but in fact some codons, in some proteins, in some organisms, are used far more, or less, than you'd expect by chance. My task was to assemble comprehensive datasets of all the genes from a species and crank them through a set of [Fortran!] computer programs to decipher what pattern was followed by that organism and how did it compare and contrast with other species. It meant assembling large tables of genes vs codons counting the instances of each possibility: Gene ACT1 had 14 UUU codons, 30 UUC codons etc.

It was rather cerebral and good fun, but didn't have any obvious Use. Later it turned out that it was very important for getting max yield of useful genes expressed in vats full of transformed Bacillus subtilis or Pichia pastoris. Or the design of vaccines against coronaviruses.

Politics = funders please pay attention! There is a tendency to prefer funding applied research rather than pure science. Applied research is normal science - inserting another brick in the wall; building on a solid pedestrian foundation; likely to yield a pay-back for society in the life-time of this government. It is solid, dependable and boring. Pure science is where you let the hottest minds of your generation off to follow their insatiably curious noses. That has the potential for revealing something really surprising which will game-changer everything for the better.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:19 AM on February 20 [12 favorites]

That's another way to make sure everyone has six fingers on each hand.
posted by Lemkin at 6:30 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]

This is probably something current AIs could be good at. Statistical correlation and pattern recognition across very large datasets is basically their strong suit. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of it.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:18 AM on February 20

probably

probably? absolutely - demonstrably.
posted by lalochezia at 10:28 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]