Generative AI Arrives In the Gene Editing World of CRISPR

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Generative A.I. technologies can write poetry and computer programs or create images of teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a Hollywood movie. Now, new A.I. technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today. Described in a research paper published on Monday by a Berkeley, Calif., startup called Profluent, the technology is based on the same methods that drive ChatGPT, the online chatbot that launched the A.I. boom after its release in 2022. The company is expected to present the paper next month at the annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. 'Its OpenCRISPR-1 protein is built on a similar structure as the fabled CRISPR-Cas9 DNA snipper, but with hundreds of mutations that help reduce its off-target effects by 95%,' reports Fierce Biotech, citing the company's preprint manuscript published on BioRxiv. 'Profluent said it can be employed as a 'drop-in replacement' in any experiment calling for a Cas9-like molecule.'

While Profluent will keep its LLM generators private, the startup says it will open-source the products of this initiative. 'Attempting to edit human DNA with an AI-designed biological system was a scientific moonshot,' Profluent co-founder and CEO Ali Madani, Ph.D., said in a statement. 'Our success points to a future where AI precisely designs what is needed to create a range of bespoke cures for disease. To spur innovation and democratization in gene editing, with the goal of pulling this future forward, we are open-sourcing the products of this initiative.'

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