"Generative AI: From Antibodies to Productivity Boosts"

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) can suggest sequences that boost the potency of antibodies against viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and ebolavirus, according to a study published in Nature Biotechnology. Researchers used neural networks called protein language models to suggest a small number of mutations for antibodies. The model was trained on only a few thousand antibody sequences, out of the nearly 100 million protein sequences it learnt from. Many of the suggested changes to antibodies occur outside the regions of the protein that interact with its target, which are usually the focus of engineering efforts.