Stanford AI creates functional viruses never seen in nature

Researchers at Stanford University and the Arc Institute published a study in Science on August 6, 2026, showing that AI can recognise DNA patterns and design entirely novel viruses. Synthetic DNA molecules introduced into bacteria prompted production of functional, never-before-seen viruses capable of infecting other bacteria, though posing no threat to humans. The advance goes well beyond existing methods of synthetically replicating known viral genomes for drug testing.

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