Protein Language Models Turn Toxic When Adapted to Specific Taxonomic Groups, Study Finds
Manuel Fernández Burda, Santiago Aranguri, Iván Arcuschin Moreno et al. - Protein language models (PLMs) are becoming practical tools for de novo protein design, yet their dual-use potential raises safety concerns. We show that domain adaptation to specific taxonomic groups can elicit toxic protein generation, even when toxicity is not the training objective. To address t...