Trillions of Viruses Live in Your Body. AI Is Trying to Find Them

Scientists estimate that tens of trillions of viruses live inside of us, though they’ve identified just a fraction of them. A vast majority are benign, and some may even be beneficial, but we don’t know for sure, because most of the so-called human virome remains a mystery. Now, the Human Virome Project, whose leaders include Frederic Bushman, PhD, chair of Microbiology, and Ronald Collman, MD, a professor of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care, will use advanced computing techniques and AI to analyze samples from thousands of volunteers in an effort to understand how viruses affect health.