科学家称首次利用人工智能设计的病毒治疗人类患者某些病毒会攻击细菌，有时能清除抗生素耐药感染。研究人员表示，他们已针对一名患者的病情定制了一种病毒。
Start-Up Claims to Use A.I.-Created Viruses to Treat a Patient Certain viruses attack bacteria and can sometimes clear antibiotic-resistant infections. Researchers said they had tailored a virus to attack one patient’s illness.
科学家周二宣布，他们首次利用人工智能设计的病毒治疗了一名人类患者。
For the first time, scientists say they have used viruses designed by artificial intelligence to treat a human patient.
研究人员宣布，他们已向一名患有致命细菌感染的患者给药，这种病毒被称为噬菌体。噬菌体会攻击细菌，希望这种噬菌体能杀死导致感染的微生物。
Researchers announced on Tuesday that they had administered the virus, known as a phage, to a patient suffering from a deadly bacterial infection. Phages attack bacteria, and the hope is that this one will kill the microbes causing the infection.
创建这些病毒的初创公司 Radical Numerics 在其网站上发布了一份技术报告。但该公司拒绝提供患者或进行试验的医生的信息，理由是保密要求。
Radical Numerics, the start-up that created the viruses, posted a technical report about them on its website. But the company declined to provide information about the patient or the doctors running the trial, citing confidentiality requirements.
该报告未经同行评审，也未在科学期刊发表。公司官员表示，该试验已获得美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）授权。
The report has not been peer reviewed or published in a scientific journal. Company officials said the trial had been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.
Radical Numerics 首席执行官 Eric Nguyen 表示：“我们非常重视保护患者隐私和维护临床合作伙伴信任的责任。”
“We take our responsibility to protect patient confidentiality and maintain the trust of our clinical partners extremely seriously,” said Eric Nguyen, the chief executive officer of Radical Numerics.
他补充道：“我们打算通过同行评审的研究发表科学发现，未来披露任何临床细节都将取决于适当的同意。”
“We intend to publish our scientific findings through peer-reviewed research, with any future disclosure of clinical details subject to appropriate consent,” he added.
外部专家对这一消息表示好奇，并持观望态度。未参与该研究的哈佛大学微生物学家 Michael Baym 表示：“如果有效，那将是不可思议的。”
Outside experts greeted the news with curiosity, and a wait-and-see attitude. “If it works, that’s incredible,” said Michael Baym, a microbiologist at Harvard University who was not involved in the research.
如果实验成功，可能指明人工智能在医学中的新用途，提供个性化治疗，靶向甚至最顽固的细菌感染。
If the experiment succeeds, it could point to a new way to use A.I. in medicine, providing individualized treatment that targets even the most resistant bacterial infections.
Baym 表示，他将保留判断，直到治疗结束并能考察该公司病毒的创新程度。“我的第一反应是持怀疑态度，”他说。
Dr. Baym said he would reserve judgment until the treatment is finished and it becomes possible to examine just how novel the company’s viruses are. “My impulse is to be skeptical,” he said.
A.I.设计的病毒或许是新事物，但噬菌体疗法的历史已逾百年。
A.I.-designed viruses may be new, but phage therapy dates back over a century.
如今，随着抗生素耐药性在全球范围内日益严重，这种疗法迎来了复兴。在美国及其他地区，专门从事噬菌体疗法的诊所相继开业，帮助那些深受多重耐药感染折磨的患者。但这种治疗远比吞服几片青霉素要复杂得多。
Now, as antibiotic resistance becomes a growing problem worldwide, the treatment has had a renaissance. In the United States and elsewhere, clinics specializing in phage therapy have opened to help patients struggling against infections that resist multiple drugs. But this treatment is much harder than popping a few pills of penicillin.
每种噬菌体仅能感染有限数量的细菌菌株。医生一旦获得某种噬菌体，必须对其进行筛选，以判断它是否有望对患者的感染起效。
Each type of phage infects only a limited number of bacterial strains. Once doctors get hold of one, they have to screen the virus to see if it has a chance of working against their patient’s infection.
“寻找噬菌体极其耗时，”加拿大渥太华医院的传染病临床医生马里萨·阿扎德博士说，她正与Radical Numerics公司合作。
“Hunting for phages is remarkably time-consuming,” said Dr. Marisa Azad, an infectious disease clinician at the Ottawa Hospital in Canada who is working on a collaboration with Radical Numerics.
一些研究人员试图通过在土壤和水中搜寻新种噬菌体来突破这一障碍，以扩充医疗武器库。但人工智能的出现给科学家带来了另一个思路：设计新型噬菌体，专门针对感染患者的特定细菌。
Some researchers are trying to overcome that barrier by searching in soil and water for new species of phages, enlarging the medical arsenal. But the emergence of A.I. has given scientists another idea: design new phages, customized to fight the particular bacteria infecting a patient.
2025年，位于加利福尼亚州帕洛阿尔托的Arc研究所的研究人员创建了一个名为Evo 2的人工智能模型，该模型在数百万个DNA序列（包括噬菌体基因）上进行了训练。他们提示Evo 2生成与一组噬菌体物种相似的新基因组。
In 2025, researchers at the Arc Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., created an A.I. model called Evo 2, which they trained on millions of DNA sequences, including phage genes. They prompted Evo 2 to make new genomes similar to those in a group of phage species.
该人工智能生成了70万个病毒基因组。团队从285个基因组合成了DNA分子并将其导入细菌。研究人员发现，其中16个基因组产生了具有活性的病毒。
The A.I. generated 700,000 virus genomes. The team synthesized DNA molecules from 285 genomes and inserted them into bacteria. The researchers found that 16 of the genomes gave rise to viable viruses.
Evo团队的三名成员（包括阮博士）离职创立了Radical Numerics公司。6月，该公司推出了一个名为Omnii的新人工智能模型，其原理部分基于Evo。
Three members of the Evo team, including Dr. Nguyen, left to found Radical Numerics. In June, the company unveiled a new A.I. model, called Omnii, based on some of the same principles as Evo.
Omnii不仅可以在DNA上训练，还可以在生物学的其他方面进行训练，例如蛋白质结构以及控制基因开启或关闭的分子结构。
Omnii can be trained not just on DNA but also on other aspects of biology, such as the structures of proteins and molecules that keep genes turned on or off.
该公司目前正利用 Omnii 应对一系列挑战，包括设计癌症疫苗和识别病毒引发大流行的风险。在这些工作中，包括首次开展人工智能设计的噬菌体疗法试验。
The company is now using Omnii to tackle a range of challenges, including designing cancer vaccines and recognizing the risk that a virus may cause a pandemic. Among these efforts is the first trial of A.I.-designed phage therapy.
研究人员创造了一种名为 T7 的噬菌体的变体。这种仅感染大肠杆菌的病毒，外形酷似微型的阿波罗登月舱：一个球状的蛋白质外壳包裹着其 DNA，位于六条腿状突起之上。
The researchers created variations of a phage called T7. The virus, which only infects E. coli, looks like a microscopic Apollo lunar lander: a ball-shaped protein shell that holds its DNA atop six leglike protrusions.
为感染细菌，T7 会降落在细菌表面，利用其“腿”锚定自身。随后，它将 DNA 注入细胞内。
To infect a bacterium, T7 lands on its surface, using its legs to anchor in place. It then injects its DNA into the cell.
据阮博士及其同事介绍，Omnii 生成了新的病毒基因，改变了 T7 “腿”的形状。虽然部分新“腿”与天然结构差异显著，但 Omnii 设计的噬菌体仍能感染细菌。
Omnii generated new viral genes altering the shapes of T7’s legs, according to Dr. Nguyen and his colleagues. While some of the new legs were significantly different from natural ones, Omnii’s phages could still infect bacteria.
一旦研究人员确信其策略奏效，他们便与治疗一名顽固性大肠杆菌感染患者的医生建立了合作。该细菌不仅对抗生素产生耐药性，还对所有可用的噬菌体具有抗性。
Once the researchers were confident their strategy had worked, they partnered with doctors treating a patient with a stubborn E. coli infection. The bacteria had resisted not just antibiotics but all the available phages.
研究人员表示，他们利用耐药菌株的相关信息训练了 Omnii，并指令其设计能够抓附细菌的 T7 噬菌体“腿”。
The researchers said they had trained Omnii with information about the resistant strain and told it to design T7 phages with legs that could grab onto the bacteria.
人工智能生成新病毒基因组后，科学家们称他们合成了相应的 DNA 分子并将其导入细菌。细菌被感染后产生了 T7 噬菌体，这些噬菌体能成功感染并杀灭其他微生物。
Once the A.I. generated genomes for new viruses, the scientists said they produced the corresponding DNA molecules and inserted them in bacteria. The bacteria became infected and produced T7 phages that could successfully infect, and kill, other microbes.
在进行测试确保噬菌体安全后，Radical Numerics 将其提交给医生。美国食品药品监督管理局（F.D.A.）批准了临床试验。
After running tests to make sure the phages were safe, Radical Numerics presented them to the doctors. The F.D.A. authorized a trial.
瑞典乌普萨拉大学的进化微生物学家 Brandon Berryhill 表示，无法保证人工智能设计的噬菌体一定有效。他说：“我们无法在实验室测量任何指标，并据此断言它在控制感染方面会有多好。”
Brandon Berryhill, an evolutionary microbiologist at Uppsala University in Sweden, said there was no guarantee that the A.I.-designed phages would work. “We cannot measure anything in the lab and say how good it’s going to be at controlling something in an infection,” he said.
即使治疗确实有效，仅靠人工智能的帮助创造噬菌体，也无法让科学家弄清是什么决定了噬菌体疗法的成败。“我们对游戏规则的无知实在太多了，”贝里希尔博士说。
Even if the treatment does work, simply creating phages with the help of A.I. won’t help scientists to understand what determines why a phage therapy succeeds or fails. “There’s just so much we don’t know about the rules of the game,” Dr. Berryhill said.
要过一段时间才能知道奥姆尼公司的新型噬菌体是否奏效。噬菌体疗法可能持续数天或数周，医生通常会监测患者数月，以防感染复发。
It will take a while to know if Omnii’s novel phages succeed. Phage therapy can last for days or weeks, and doctors typically monitor their patients for months in case the infection rebounds.
如果试验成功，阮博士希望公司能通过缩短为每位患者的感染量身定制新病毒所需的时间，来加快噬菌体疗法的进程。“我们认为可以在数天内完成，”他说。卡尔·齐默为《纽约时报》撰写科学新闻，并撰写“起源”专栏。
If the trial is successful, Dr. Nguyen hopes the company can help speed phage therapy by cutting down the time it takes to create a new virus tailored to each patient’s infection. “We think we can get it done in days,” he said. Carl Zimmer covers news about science for The Times and writes the Origins column.