{"id":89200,"date":"2025-08-17T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/89200\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T09:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T09:30:08","slug":"scientists-are-using-ai-for-improved-gene-hacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/89200\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Are Using AI for Improved Gene Hacking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gene editing has made huge leaps in recent years, such as treating the congenital blood disorders sickle cell anemia<\/a> and beta thalassemia<\/a>, which can require lifelong blood transfusions. But scientists still fear that some snipping may lead to unwelcome surprises<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, a research team led by the University of Zurich says that artificial intelligence could help.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0new study<\/a> published in the journal Nature details how the researchers combined AI and the gene editing technique CRISPR-Cas<\/a> for more precise editing, which may lead to better gene therapies for patients and fewer side effects.<\/p>\n

They did this by developing a new AI tool called Pythia, named after the ancient oracle at the Temple of Apollo<\/a>, which can predict how cells will repair a portion of DNA post-gene editing.<\/p>\n

“DNA repair follows patterns; it’s not random,” said lead author and University of Zurich biotechnology\u00a0researcher Thomas Naert in a statement<\/a> about the study. “We were able to model on a large scale that this DNA repair process obeys consistent rules that AI can learn and predict.”<\/p>\n

To test out the efficacy of Pythia, the scientists developed what they called “DNA repair templates” based on Pythia’s predictions.<\/p>\n

“Our team has developed tiny DNA repair templates that act like molecular glue, guiding the cell to make precise genetic changes,” said Naert.<\/p>\n

They were successful in making precise repairs on human cell cultures and then on lab mice and small frogs, which are often used for science experiments.<\/p>\n

Scientists observed the altered cells that were subjected to a DNA repair template and saw that edits didn’t negatively impact the process of cell division or the subsequent functions within the cells.<\/p>\n

Their experiments with Pythia could enable scientists to precisely change a few letters or insert strings of genetic code into their correct location, while also having the ability to work with cells that don’t divide or replicate like mature brain cells<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Besides more accurate gene editing, Pythia could also allow researchers to precisely tag genes that make certain proteins with fluorescent labels<\/a> that glow under microscopic observation.<\/p>\n

“This allows us to directly observe what individual proteins do in healthy and diseased tissue,” said Naert.<\/p>\n

The scientists are hopeful that others could make use of their AI model<\/a>, potentially inspiring more treatments for intractable diseases caused by faulty genes.<\/p>\n

More on AI and medicine: Man Follows ChatGPT’s Advice and Poisons Himself<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gene editing has made huge leaps in recent years, such as treating the congenital blood disorders sickle cell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[61154,61155,61157,27066,200,61156,79,61153,61152],"class_list":["post-89200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-genetics","tag-blood-disorders","tag-blood-transfusions","tag-dna-repair","tag-gene-editing","tag-genetics","tag-pythia","tag-science","tag-sickle-cell-anemia","tag-university-of-zurich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}