Developed in collaboration with researchers at Zhongguancun Academy in China and the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, the model is trained on genomic sequences and natural language so that people can ask questions about the effects of DNA changes on gene activity and health and get conversational answers in return

Lewis Tunstall, a senior research scientist at Hugging Face, says the tool is meant to help researchers design new drugs and genetic therapies, and it could potentially aid patients in interpreting their own genomes

"We've unlocked a new capability in language models, which is fundamentally about being able to chat with DNA," he says of the new model, dubbed Carbon-X . Using natural language means even nontechnical users "can actually ask questions about DNA that wouldn't be accessible through any other tool."