Tag

Protein Design

All articles tagged with #protein design

ProteinGuide enables on-the-fly conditioning of protein design models with experimental data
biotech27 days ago

ProteinGuide enables on-the-fly conditioning of protein design models with experimental data

ProteinGuide provides an inference-time conditioning framework that lets a broad class of protein sequence generators (including masked language models like ESM3, autoregressive models like ProteinMPNN, and discrete-space diffusion/flow models) be guided by auxiliary experimental data without retraining. Built on a unifying statistical approach, it enables designs targeting properties such as stability and activity, supports multi-property Pareto optimization, and, when combined with wet-lab data, can enhance in vivo base-editor activity beyond multi-round directed evolution. The work provides code and data (Zenodo, GitHub) and a ProteinGen package to facilitate design workflows.

Raygun: AI-driven, length-agnostic protein design that preserves function
technology28 days ago

Raygun: AI-driven, length-agnostic protein design that preserves function

Raygun is an autoencoder-based AI framework that encodes proteins as fixed-dimensional Gaussian distributions derived from protein language model embeddings, enabling rapid, single-shot generation of variants at any length with controlled substitutions and indels while preserving predicted structure and functional sites. It demonstrates miniaturization of fluorescent proteins and TurboID, enlargement of EGF with improved EGFR binding, and broad applicability to template-guided protein redesign, offering a faster alternative to diffusion-based de novo design.

AI-designed starting points accelerate enzyme evolution for enhanced stability and precision
science1 month ago

AI-designed starting points accelerate enzyme evolution for enhanced stability and precision

A Nature study shows that AI-designed, stabilized BoNT proteases (via ProteinMPNN) used as starting points for phage-assisted continuous evolution (PACE/PANCE) consistently yield enzymes with higher stability, better soluble expression, and greater catalytic efficiency across substrates than wild-type starts. Redesigned starting points expand the mutationally accessible sequence space, enabling faster adaptation and access to high-function genotypes that WT enzymes cannot reach. Notably, redesigned BoNT/E variants evolved to specifically cleave disease-relevant ataxin-2 with substantially higher specificity and minimal native-substrate activity, illustrating a practical AI-plus-evolution workflow to rapidly reprogram enzymes for new targets with improved safety profiles.

Doudna’s AI-designed tiny nucleases promise on-demand gene editing
science1 month ago

Doudna’s AI-designed tiny nucleases promise on-demand gene editing

Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna and colleagues report an AI-driven platform for designing non-natural nucleases, producing a tiny TnpB enzyme capable of binding and cutting DNA in human, plant, and bacterial cells. By using an inverse protein-model to tailor sequences to predefined backbones, the team envisions on-demand enzyme design with potential medical and agricultural applications and notes possible IP implications as the field advances.

Programmable quasisymmetric protein cages from two complementary building blocks
science3 months ago

Programmable quasisymmetric protein cages from two complementary building blocks

Nature reports a computational design strategy using geometric frustration to create two-component, quasisymmetric protein cages that assemble into sphere-like structures by embedding curvature-inducing pentagonal defects. By pairing complementary trimeric and dimeric blocks, the authors programmably control cage size from ~40 nm to >200 nm and mass from 2 to >50 MDa, comparable to viral capsids. The cages are functionalized for ribonucleoprotein cargo loading and cellular uptake, enabling studies of cargo delivery and size-dependent diffusion in cells. Data and code are publicly available (Zenodo, GitHub), underscoring a new route for biologics delivery and cell biology tools.

Bacteria Survive on 19 Amino Acids in Ribosomes for 450 Generations
science3 months ago

Bacteria Survive on 19 Amino Acids in Ribosomes for 450 Generations

Columbia University researchers redesigned 21 ribosomal proteins in E. coli to remove isoleucine, using AI-guided protein design, and created a viable strain that survived and reproduced for over 450 generations. The genome still largely relies on isoleucine, so it's not a full 19-amino-acid organism, but the work shows life can function with a reduced amino acid alphabet and provides a framework for studying early protein synthesis.

AI-Designed NovoTags Expand Multicolor Live-Cell Imaging
science3 months ago

AI-Designed NovoTags Expand Multicolor Live-Cell Imaging

Researchers at HHMI’s AI@HHMI, led by David Baker and Luke Lavis, are using RFdiffusion-based AI to design NovoTags—small protein binders that pair with Janelia Fluor dyes—to create a new class of fluorescent probes. This approach could let scientists label many colors and proteins simultaneously, without traditional chemical linkers, enabling longer, multi-color imaging and accelerating discovery. The team plans to rollout NovoTags for about a dozen dye colors and expand to dyes that blink or respond to physiological signals, with the tools becoming broadly available to the scientific community.

BindCraft AI Excels in One-Shot Protein Design
science1 year ago

BindCraft AI Excels in One-Shot Protein Design

BindCraft, an AI-powered pipeline for de novo protein binder design developed by EPFL researchers, achieves high success rates in creating functional protein binders against diverse targets, including challenging proteins like CRISPR-Cas9, with potential to accelerate drug discovery and therapeutic development. Its open-source availability has garnered widespread industry and academic adoption, marking a significant advancement in computational protein engineering.

AI-Driven Advances in Precision Cancer Treatments and Vaccines
health1 year ago

AI-Driven Advances in Precision Cancer Treatments and Vaccines

Researchers have developed an AI platform that rapidly designs personalized immune cell therapies for cancer, reducing development time from years to weeks, and showing promising laboratory results for targeted cancer cell destruction. The method involves creating custom proteins to guide immune cells to attack tumors, with plans for clinical trials in the next five years.

Latent Labs unveils web AI tool to democratize protein design
science-and-technology1 year ago

Latent Labs unveils web AI tool to democratize protein design

Latent Labs has launched a web-based AI model called LatentX that enables users to design novel proteins, including therapeutics like nanobodies and antibodies, directly in their browser. The model has achieved state-of-the-art performance and aims to democratize protein design by licensing its technology to external organizations, with plans to monetize advanced features in the future.