An electron micrograph of ΦX174 phages (left) and the 3D structure of a single ΦX174 phage (right). By sequencing the phages over time, the researchers could track which phages were gaining ground and which were falling behind. One of this phage’s genes, called J, was swapped with a gene from a distant phage, called G4. Several of the viable AI phages reported in this paper, for example, shared less than 95 percent of their genome with any known phages. Just as Sanger’s sequencing of ΦX174 opened the path toward modern genomics, these AI-designed phages may indeed mark an early step in the new field of "Genome Design."