Google’s new AI
Google’s new AI will help researchers understand how our genes work
When scientists first sequenced the human genome in 2003, they revealed the full set of DNA instructions that make a person. But we still didn’t know what all those 3 billion genetic letters actually do.
Now Google’s DeepMind division says it’s made a leap in trying to understand the code with AlphaGenome, an AI model that predicts what effects small changes in DNA will have on an array of molecular processes, such as whether a gene’s activity will go up or down. It’s just the sort of question biologists regularly assess in lab experiments.
“We have, for the first time, created a single model that unifies many different challenges that come with understanding the genome,” says Pushmeet Kohli, a vice president for research at DeepMind.
