AI for Human Genetic Enhancement
The increasing ability of machine learning techniques to detect patterns is helping us to understand the complexities of the genome. AI is poised to become an important tool in genetic engineering and enhancement.
Published in
3 min readApr 20, 2020
The messy world of the genome
All our DNA, all our genetic material, all of our tens of thousands of genes (estimates vary), is coiled up into chromosomes. Nice and tidy, right? Unwind the bit you want to read, translate, and — presto — the desired protein is produced.
Not exactly. The one gene one trait idea/dream has been put to rest a long time ago (with some notable exceptions). One gene can affect many traits, one trait can be affected by many genes.
It doesn’t end there. Gene expression can be ramped up or damped down by other stretches of DNA or molecules rambling around in our cells.
The genome and its workings are chaos.
Enter AI and pattern recognition
Well, of course it’s not completely chaos. Life would be very hard if it were.
Let’s say that there is method to the (genomic) madness.
