DeepMind is using AI to pinpoint the causes of genetic disease

Now the company says it has fine-tuned that protein model to predict which misspellings found in human DNA are safe to ignore and which are likely to cause disease. The new software, called AlphaMissense, was described today in a report published by the journal Science. As part of its project, DeepMind says, it is publicly releasing tens of millions of these predictions, but the company isn't letting others directly download the model because of what it characterizes as potential biosecurity risks should the technique be applied to other species. Although not intended to directly make diagnoses, computer predictions are already used by doctors to help locate the genetic causes of mysterious syndromes. In a blog post, DeepMind said its results are part of an effort to uncover "the root cause of disease" and could lead to "faster diagnosis and developing life-saving treatments."