India, Aug. 7 -- Researchers have achieved a major scientific milestone by using artificial intelligence (AI) to design viruses that have never existed in nature. To be more specific, this concerns bacteriophage (a virus that infects and replicates within bacteria) or just phage viruses, which infect bacteria only and not people, animals, or plants. Thus, instead of replicating already-existing viruses, AI analysed thousands of phage genomes, identified similarities in their genetic structure, and invented new DNA that has never been created before. The researchers made these viruses in their laboratory and found out that 16 of them managed to infect and kill E. coli bacteria ( a type of bacteria that normally lives in the healthy intesti...