The Power of Evo 2: AI Meets DNA

Evo 2 is the largest AI model for biology ever created, trained on an astonishing 9.3 trillion DNA "letters" (nucleotides) carefully selected from genomes spanning the entire tree of life. This massive dataset ensures that Evo 2 can recognize patterns and relationships in genetic sequences at an unparalleled scale.

For the first time, scientists can design DNA with AI, moving beyond simple sequence analysis to active DNA generation. Evo 2 enables researchers to predict, modify, and even create entire genetic sequences, opening new possibilities in medicine, agriculture, and synthetic biology.

Decoding the Dark Genome

One of the biggest challenges in genetics is understanding the non-coding regions of DNA—vast stretches of the genome that do not code for proteins but play crucial roles in regulating gene expression. These regions control when and how genes are activated, influencing everything from development to disease.

Evo 2 is designed to decode these non-coding elements, helping researchers uncover their functions and use this knowledge to develop gene-based therapies, synthetic life forms, and precision agriculture solutions.

From Reading DNA to Writing It

To put Evo 2’s impact into perspective:

• Previous AI models could "read" DNA like a book, analyzing genetic sequences and identifying patterns.
• Evo 2 can "write" entirely new DNA, designing functional genes, chromosomes, and even full genomes from scratch.

This means scientists can now engineer biological systems with AI, designing new proteins, metabolic pathways, and genetic circuits to address real-world challenges.

A Step Toward Generative Biology

The Arc Institute describes Evo 2 as a major step toward "generative biology"—a revolutionary approach where AI is used to create novel biological structures rather than just analyzing existing ones. This could lead to breakthroughs such as:

• New medicines: AI-generated enzymes and proteins tailored for targeted therapies.
• Disease-resistant crops: Genetically optimized plants for higher yield and climate resilience.
• Synthetic organisms: Custom-designed microbes for bioremediation, biofuel production, and industrial applications.

An Open-Source Revolution

Unlike many proprietary AI models, Evo 2 is open source, making its capabilities accessible to researchers worldwide. This democratization of AI-driven biology means that scientists from different disciplines can collaborate, experiment, and innovate, accelerating discoveries in genetic engineering and synthetic biology.

With Evo 2, the boundaries of what’s possible in DNA design, genetic engineering, and biological innovation are being redrawn. The future of life sciences is no longer just about understanding life’s code—it’s about writing it.

This software implements a de novo, alignment free measure of sample genetic dissimilarity which operates upon raw sequencing reads. It is able to calculate the genetic dissimilarity between samples without any reference genome, and without assembling one.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/kdmurray91/kwip

A manual can be found here.

Address of the bookmark: https://www.zbh.uni-hamburg.de/forschung/arbeitsgruppe-genominformatik/software/tallymer.html

Simple and efficient tools for data mining and data analysis
Accessible to everybody, and reusable in various contexts
Built on NumPy, SciPy, and matplotlib
Open source, commercially usable - BSD license

More at http://scikit-learn.org/stable/index.html

Address of the bookmark: http://scikit-learn.org/stable/auto_examples/index.html

https://flowingdata.com/

Address of the bookmark: https://flowingdata.com/

Xiaole Shirley Liu (lead instructor)
Joshua Starmer
Martin Hemberg
Ting Wang
Feng Yue

Ming Tang
Yang Liu
Jack Kang
Scarlett Ge
Jiazhen Rong
Phillip Nicol
Maartin De Vries

We thank many colleagues in the community, who helped Dr. Liu in prepare the STAT115/215 BIO/BST282 course over the years. 

Address of the bookmark: https://liulab-dfci.github.io/bioinfo-combio/

Research Interest and Activities: 1. Plant Genetic Transformations
2. Molecular Population Genetics 3. Detection of human and Animals diseases 4. Breast Cancer­specific protein marker 5. Phytochemical 6. Genomic map 7. Bioremediation 8. Tissue Culture.

Web site and links: www.geocity.cbge.com

• data = mock data for the snakefile to use
• Snakefile = name of the snakemake “formula” file
  • Note: The default file that snakemake looks for in the current working directory is the Snakefile. If you would like to override that you can specify it following the -s
    • snakemake -s snakefile.py
• envs = directory for storing the conda environments that the workflow will use.
• scripts = directory for storing python scripts called by the snakemake formula.
• config.json = json format file with extra parameters for our snakemake file to use.
• cluster.json = json format file with specification for running on the HPC
• samples.txt = file we will use later relating to the config.json file.

Run the snakemake file as a dry run (the example workflow shown above).

• This will build a DAG of the jobs to be run without actually executing them.
• snakemake --dry-run

User can execute rules of interest.

• snakemake --dry-run all VS. snakemake --dry-run call VS. snakemake --dry-run bwa

Run the snakemake file in order to produce an image of the DAG of jobs to be run.

• snakemake --dag | dot -Tsvg > dag.svg OR snakemake --dag | dot -Tsvg > dag.svg

Run the snakemake (this time not as a dry run)

1. snakemake --use-conda

People say that interviews at Google will cover as much ground as possible. As a new college graduate, the ground that I must capture are the following. Part of the list is borrowed from a reddit post: https://www. reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/206ajq/my_onsite_interview_experience_at_google/ #bottom-comments.

1. Data structures

2. Trees and Graph algorithms

3. Dynamic Programming

4. Recursive algorithms

5. Scheduling algorithms (Greedy)

6. Caching 1

7. Sorting

8. Files

9. Computability

10. Bitwise operators

11. System design