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"We often think about binding as a very simple relationship—Molecule A binds to Molecule B," says Albert Keung, co-corresponding author of the study in Nature Communications and an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State University. "But in biological systems, it's far from simple. Molecule A may bind to dozens of other molecules, to varying degrees.

"Capturing that hypercomplexity is a significant challenge, but it is critical if we want to better understand natural genetic systems," says Keung, who is the Goodnight Distinguished Scholar in Innovation in Biotechnology and Biomolecular Engineering and director of the Biotechnology Program in NC State's Integrative Sciences Initiative. "And capturing that hypercomplexity is also critical if we want to develop tools that make full use of biomolecules, such as diagnostic tools that are sensitive to genetic differences or DNA computing systems that rely on DNA to store and retrieve data."

"We knew that deep learning models—artificial intelligence models capable of capturing complex patterns—had the potential to help us explore this type of hypercomplex system," says Gunavaran Brihadiswaran, co-lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. student at NC State. "However, we also knew that we would need a robust dataset in order to train the model. A model is only as good as the data you train it on."

Previous attempts to develop tools to predict DNA-DNA binding behaviors relied on relatively small datasets of DNA-DNA data and then used biophysical modeling tools to predict which DNA sequences would bind to other DNA sequences. The resulting predictive tools struggle to capture the complexity of binding relationships.

"We took a different experimental approach that allowed us to generate substantially more data on which DNA sequences bind to each other," says Karishma Matange, co-lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. graduate of NC State. "Altogether, our database consists of 144 million sequence pairs. This broader dataset allowed us to make use of AI models rather than extrapolating based on biophysical or biochemical principles."

Specifically, the researchers used their larger dataset to train a deep learning model to predict which DNA sequences would bind to other DNA sequences. They named the model BINND: Binding and Interaction Neural Network for DNA.

In proof-of-concept testing, the researchers found the BINND model predicted which DNA pairs would bind with 83.5% accuracy. And when it did err, it tended to predict that two DNA sequences would not bind—when in fact the sequences would bind.

"BINND is at least 10% more accurate than the state-of-the-art model," says Brihadiswaran.

To demonstrate the utility of BINND, the researchers used the model to produce a database that captures the hyperconnected nature of DNA-DNA binding behaviors. The database is essentially a matrix showing how 96 20-character DNA sequences bind—or do not bind—with 26 other 20-character DNA sequences.

"This particular demonstration has real utility from a DNA computing standpoint, as it provides us with key information about the characteristics of these sequences—which is critical for efforts to capture and retrieve information using DNA," says James Tuck, co-corresponding author of the paper and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. "We're hoping that others in the research community will make use of BINND, which is why we're making it publicly available on GitHub." The BINND repository can be found at https://github.com/dna-storage/BINND.

"One of the challenges for DNA data storage and computing has been whether it can be scaled up for practical use," says Keung. "We're optimistic that BINND will be a valuable tool for facilitating efforts to scale up those technologies, among other potential applications."

Publication details

Karishma Matange et al, Deep Learning Predicts Dissimilar DNA-DNA Binding and Engineers Hyperconnected Networks, Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-75395-w

Who's behind this story?

Swati Mestri

Swati Mestri holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering and has worked as a content editor since 2019. She has experience editing research documents across technology, health care, and materials science, and has a particular interest in technology and space. Full profile →

Andrew Zinin

Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →

Citation: AI helps scientists improve prediction of which DNA sequences bind to each other (2026, July 14) retrieved 14 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-scientists-dna-sequences.html

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In a new episode of Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, Blackberry Smoke frontman Charlie Starr and Newsted talk about how they met, why they make sense together on the road, and the struggles they’ve faced in their respective bands. For Blackberry Smoke, it was the devastating loss of founding drummer Brit Turner in 2024 after a battle with cancer of the brain. Despite the tragedy, Starr says, Turner was adamant about the group carrying on, and they brought in Kent Aberle to play when Turner couldn’t.

“Brit was like, ‘We’re not stopping, OK?’ I was like, ‘All right.’ We brought in Kent Aberle then, who was shadowing Brit, and he was working and teching and warming up with him. He knew I will play when he can’t, and Brit knew that too,” Starr says.

For Starr, the most brutal part was seeing his friend and bandmate unable to play.

“Brit knew he was losing his motor skills. It was so crazy to talk to somebody that knows this is happening to them,” he says. “He was like, ‘I can’t hold onto my drumsticks anymore.…’ And there were certain songs he was like, ‘Can we please not play this?’ I didn’t even know I knew what to say to him, but it was, ‘We’ll do whatever the fuck you want to do. I’m so glad you’re here.’”

Starr and Newsted talk at length about how cancer has affected them or people they love. Newsted was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2025, which he talks at length about on Nashville Now. Watch the full episode below.

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According to Starr, Turner was all but unstoppable throughout his illness. “Even to the very end,” he says.

Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by Deputy Editor, Head of Country Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Vince Gill, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey, Hardy, the War and Treaty, Charley Crockett, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Kings of Leon, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, the Black Crowes, Carly Pearce, Amy Grant, Luke Grimes, Brandon Lake, Breland, Bryan Andrews, Noeline Hofmann, Adam Mac, Devon Gilfillian, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Michaela Anne, Ink, Ne-Yo, Rival Sons’ Jay Buchanan, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, Clever, Love on the Spectrum‘s Tyler White, Willie Nelson scholar John Spong, and authors Marissa R. Moss, Josh Crutchmer, Mark Gray, and Jonathan Bernstein. %!s()

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the move in a statement on Tuesday after Mexico said 17 of its citizens have died during US immigration enforcement operations or while in custody since Trump returned to office in January last year.

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The Mexican government has also sent cease-and-desist letters to detention centres where Mexican nationals have died. The first was sent to the Adelanto detention centre in California, where four Mexican citizens have died.

Mexico said the letters call for an end to practices that may have contributed to the deaths, including delays in medical care and detention policies it says fall short of medical and prison standards.

The government also plans to file a complaint with the US Department of Justice through the Mexican embassy while its consular network is helping bring cases to state prosecutors.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Alvarez has also written to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, asking his office to seek information from US authorities and look into whether the deaths are consistent with Washington’s international obligations.

The steps follow measures announced last week by President Claudia Sheinbaum, days after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Mexican citizen Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a raid in Houston, Texas, on 7 July.

Speaking on Monday, Sheinbaum said the issue went beyond the government and called on all Mexicans to show solidarity with their fellow citizens living in the US. While she said Mexico was not seeking a confrontation with Washington, it could not remain silent.

“We must raise our voices when there are human rights violations against our fellow citizens,” she said. %!s()

In its 2025-26 Universal Registration Document and Annual Financial Report (via GamesRadar), Ubisoft shared a bit of bad news: All of that good stuff is coming, yes, but, well, we're going to be waiting a bit. The company said its 2026-27 fiscal year, which began on April 1, will include Black Flag Resynced and "other targeted premium games" that will be announced later, but that overall the year will have a "lighter new release slate" than it's put up in the past.

But then, good news! A "significantly bigger content pipeline" is expected in the 2027-28 and 2028-29 fiscal years, with new games from Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Ghost Recon, as well as an "acceleration of [Ubisoft's] live services," which—before you write that off as the opposite of good news—includes Rainbow Six Siege, which remains one of Ubi's bona fide hits.

I always read documents like this with a bit of a jaundiced eye. A major videogame publisher is going to publish new games in its best-known and most lucrative franchises at some undetermined point in the future? Not exactly a stop-the-presses moment. Nor is this anything especially new: Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed in March that new Assassin's Creed and Far Cry games are in the works, and of course they are: We all dutifully play the will they/won't they game, but a new Far Cry and Assassin's Creed is 100% a question of 'when,' not 'if.'

But that's what makes this financial doc a little more interesting for me than it otherwise might have been—because the 'when' part of the equation has proven so vexing for Ubisoft over the years. Beyond Good and Evil 2, which will not be born and refuses to die, is the obvious exemplar, but Ubisoft has been plagued by cancellations, delays, and long, awkward, silences for years.

The company tapped the brakes on annualized Assassin's Creed and Far Cry releases in 2016, which seemed wise at the time. But in the years since, that's come to feel less like 'taking the time to get it right' and more like a simple lack of focus and direction, and an inability to get games finished and released with any kind of timeliness.

That sensation is exacerbated by Ubisoft's highly publicized troubles over the past few years, which have seen multiple rounds of layoffs, studio closures, high-profile creative departures, and underperforming releases; a major restructuring announced in January has only seen more of the same, leading to scenarios like Ubisoft Barcelona laying off employees amidst the success of Black Flag Resynced.

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So this, basically, is Ubisoft asking for more time: Not from you, the gamer, so much, but from its shareholders, who may be getting a bit jittery about the company's chances for a comeback and may therefore be more likely to entertain offers from outsiders—like, say, Tencent, a major backer of its new "creative house" structure. Tencent didn't make a move on Ubisoft in 2025 as some had speculated, but it did take a run at it in 2022, and while some Chinese companies, like NetEase, seem to be disentangling themselves from the Western game biz somewhat, Tencent's significant backing of Ubisoft's new "creative house" structure suggests to me that if it sees a clear shot, it's going to take it.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill. %!s()

As Yano explains it in an interview with GameSpot, the rough placeholder art looks like something made in MS Paint because he "wanted to set the precedent that some of the stuff is incomplete, and I wanted to make it obvious. I think things being obviously incomplete is actually pretty important for early access." Yano does make the point that he thinks the art time probably would have liked to have been further along with the art than they are, he still "knew that we were going to be drawing a bunch of garbage during early access."

But even more than that, he notes that if they "use art that looks nearly complete, then people would think that that's going to be the final art. It has to look like shit. It's important that it looks like shit." It's an approach to early access you don't always see anymore. Increasingly there seems to be this expectation that even early access games should have a particular amount of polish to them, so it's nice to see a novel attempt at pushing back on that.

Perhaps most importantly though is Yano's thoughts on using placeholder art like this over AI-generated art. "Anybody who has gone through the [artistic] process… I wouldn't say they would feel cheated, but they would feel a kind of sadness, right?" he explains. "You don't see the path that somebody took to get better and develop their own style. You just see somebody who's like, 'I just want something in this style.'" He does also note how there are artists out there whose job is to imitate certain styles, but "in this case, the game is in our style, so I don't know why we'd need AI to mimic our own style." Always a win to see a dev thoroughly disinterested in generative AI. And I'm sure Julian will feel vindicated about this one too. %!s()