It’s now clear that understanding the human genome is no longer a matter of figuring out what each gene does. The deeper and much harder question is how those genes are used, or regulated, a question that seems to involve some and perhaps much of the rest of the genome. … [T]he processes that govern gene regulation are proving so complex that some biologists wonder whether a full understanding of it — of how the genome really works — will ever be within the grasp of our puny minds.
Some are counting on outsourcing the analysis to artificial intelligence. Genomic “foundation models” such as Evo 2, Genos, and Google DeepMind’s AlphaGenome are trained on vast quantities of genomic data, which biologists use to make predictions about how differences in DNA sequence affect biological processes and ultimately the traits (including disease risk) of a whole organism.
This approach is likely to be useful, but for those who crave real understanding of how the genome, and ultimately life itself, works, a computational black box will never suffice. And perhaps more to the point, the genome might not submit to the kind of straightforward input-output approach that such AI models ultimately assume.
That’s because the genome is no blueprint or algorithm. It is something else.
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