How to build an AI-driven digital organism.

Abstract

Biology lies at the core of medicine, pharmacy, public health and longevity. However, in the physical world, biology is often too complex to manipulate and too expensive and risky to tamper with. In this Perspective, we put forward a vision of using AI to model and simulate biology and life. We present our vision on how to address this challenge through the construction of an AI-driven digital organism (AIDO)-a system of integrated multiscale foundation models-in a modular, connectable and holistic fashion to reflect biological scales, connectedness and complexities. An AIDO opens up a safe, affordable and high-throughput alternative platform for predicting, simulating and programming biology at all levels, from molecules to cells to individuals. We envision that an AIDO is poised to trigger a new wave of better-guided wet-lab experimentation and better-informed first-principle reasoning, which can eventually help us better decode and improve life.