BREAKING: Gates Foundation Funds First-Ever Creation of 16 Synthetic Viruses Using AI
The barrier separating digital AI output from an operational biological agent has now been crossed.
For the first time ever, scientists have used artificial intelligence to design complete viral genomes that were physically synthesized and turned into 16 new functional viruses capable of replicating. The work was published in Science, one of the world’s most prominent scientific journals. Disturbingly, the study’s senior author, Brian L. Hie, who conceived, designed, and supervised the research disclosed funding from the Gates Foundation.
This was not a computer simulation. Researchers generated hundreds of AI-designed viral genomes, physically manufactured the DNA, assembled the genomes, introduced them into susceptible E. coli, and recovered 16 functional bacteriophages that successfully propagated. The viruses infected bacteria, suppressed bacterial growth, produced progeny, and were grown into working viral stocks. The study represents the first generative design of complete genomes that were synthesized and experimentally shown to function as viable viruses.
The scientists used Evo 1 and Evo 2, genomic large language models that operate essentially like LLMs for DNA. Instead of predicting the next word in a sentence, they predict the next nucleotide—A, C, G, or T. In other words, scientists are now using the same basic generative-AI paradigm behind systems such as ChatGPT to write entire viral genetic blueprints. Those digital sequences can then be converted into physical DNA and ultimately into functioning biological entities.
The resulting viruses were not simply carbon copies of a known phage. The successful AI-designed genomes contained 67 to 392 nucleotide changes relative to their closest known natural relatives, and 13 contained mutations that could not be identified in known natural sequences.
These particular viruses were bacteriophages that infect bacteria, not humans, and human-infecting viruses were excluded from the relevant training data. That fact does not make the underlying capability harmless. The dangerous precedent is the demonstration that an AI model can generate a complete viral genome, that genome can be commercially synthesized, and the resulting genetic material can produce a virus capable of replication. The barrier separating digital AI output from an operational biological agent has now been crossed.
The Gates Foundation funding attached to the senior scientist behind this project raises major concerns given that they also funded permanent quantum-dot microneedle patch “vaccines” that function as biological vaccine passports.
Moreover, the Gates Foundation previously gave $9.5 million to UW-Madison and principal investigator Yoshihiro Kawaoka to modify H5N1 viruses to preferentially recognize human-type receptors and transmit efficiently in mammals.
Bioterrorists no longer need to imagine a future in which AI can design pathogens from genetic code — the foundational capability has now been revealed in a major scientific journal. AI viral genome design technology should be halted before it falls into the hands of bioterrorists or other criminal actors.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
Support our mission: mcculloughfnd.org
Please consider following both the McCullough Foundation and my personal account on X (formerly Twitter) for further content.





Gates is a bioterrorist
Remember people: no matter what you do, Bill Gates will always try to find new ways to kill you.