How to tweak drug-design software to create chemical weapons

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS are normally models of discreet understatement. They are also (or are at least supposed to be) loaded with the information needed for others to replicate their findings.Not this one. “Dual use of artificial-intelligence-powered drug discovery”, just published in , has clearly freaked its authors out. That comes over both in the tone of the text and the deliberate withholding of crucial information. For what Fabio Urbina and Sean Ekins of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, in Raleigh, North Carolina, and their colleagues are reporting is a virtual machine that can be used to design new and nastier chemical weapons.