Sydney, Australia /
More than 160,000 new virus species have been discovered by Chinese and Australian researchers using artificial intelligence (AI).
A team of scientists from the University of Sydney, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Apsara Laboratory and Sun Yat-sen University revealed in a study published in Cell that they used a new machine learning tool to discover 161,979 new species of ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses.
The study, according to the researchers, represents the largest discovery of virus species ever publishedaccording to a press release released Thursday.
The researchers said this machine learning tool could significantly improve mapping of life on Earth and assist in the identification of millions more viruses.
“This is the largest number of new virus species discovered in a single study, greatly expanding our knowledge of the viruses that live among us,” he said. Edward Holmeslead author of the study and researcher at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Sydney, in the press release.
“Discovering so many new viruses in one fell swoop is amazingand only scratches the surface, opening up a world of discovery. “There are millions more to discover, and we can apply this same approach to identify bacteria and parasites,” he added.
To carry out the discovery, the researchers developed a machine learning tool, called LucaProt, capable of processing genomically complex information and vast genetic sequence data.
Holmes noted that many of the viruses had already been sequenced previously, but that LucaProt was able to organize and categorize scattered information to identify viruses.
Li Zhaorong, co-author of the study and a member of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence’s Apsara Laboratory, said: study showed that AI can effectively perform biological exploration tasks.
The team plans to train the tool to identify even more viral diversity in the future.
FCA
