Startup Claims To Use AI-Created Viruses To Treat a Patient

For the first time, scientists have administered a virus generated by artificial intelligence to a patient suffering from a dangerous bacterial infection, according to researchers. The virus, known as a phage, attacks bacteria and the goal is for it to eliminate the microbes causing the infection. Radical Numerics, the startup that created the viruses, shared a technical report on their website, though they did not provide details about the patient or the doctors handling the trial due to confidentiality policies.

In 2025, researchers at the Arc Institute in California developed an AI model called Evo 2, which was trained on millions of DNA sequences, including those of phage species. Using this model, they produced 700,000 virus genomes. From these, they identified 16 genomes that produced viable viruses. In June, the company unveiled a new AI model, Omnii, which can be trained on DNA and other biological factors, such as protein structures and gene regulation.

The company is now using Omnii to develop AI-designed phage therapy. The researchers created variants of a phage called T7, which only infects E. coli, and altered the shapes of its legs using Omnii. Despite some significant differences from natural T7, the modified phages could still infect bacteria. Once the researchers were confident, they partnered with doctors treating a patient with a stubborn E. coli infection, one that had resisted antibiotics and all available phages.

They trained Omnii with information about the resistant strain and instructed it to design T7 phages with legs capable of attaching to the bacteria. After generating new viral genomes, the scientists produced corresponding DNA molecules and inserted them into bacteria, which then produced T7 phages that successfully infected and killed other microbes.

The FDA authorized the trial, although the research has not yet been peer-reviewed in a scientific journal, and there is no guarantee the AI-designed phages will work. If successful, this could expedite phage therapy by reducing the time needed to create a tailored virus for each patient's infection.