Proteins Are Made Of AI

Do you know about proteins are made of AI? In the life sciences, protein structure prediction is a fascinating topic that has attracted many scientists, but has also been faced with difficulty, high cost, and slow progress, until the addition of artificial intelligence, the century-old problem of individual protein folding has been largely solved. This revolutionary advancement made huge waves in the basic sciences, and the world has since entered a period of explosion in life science technology.

In the context of the pneumonia epidemic, AI + synthetic biology is gaining momentum, and AI protein design is emerging. Recently, the AI company Tianyang, based on its self-developed AI-led protein design platform TRDesign, has designed from scratch a neo-coronavirus stinger protein (S protein) binder that can block the binding of stinger protein and ACE2 receptor in human cells.Scientists are studying proteins are made of AI.

ACE2, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, is a receptor required for neocoronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) entry into human cells and plays a critical role in SARS-CoV-2 cell invasion. Compared with the traditional approach of preparing antibodies or modifying natural ACE2, Tianyang's design method has the advantages of small molecular weight of miniprotein, high thermal stability and low cost, as well as more efficient calculation method and richer folding space, which can effectively cover the whole interface of ACE2 binding with neocoronavirus spike-in protein to cope with various potential mutations of the virus, which is the first of its kind in China.

Globally, AI-based protein design has transitioned from technology concept to value verification, and several AI-led biological enzymes and pharmaceutical proteins have entered clinical trials. The strong entry of domestic companies has accelerated the technology enrichment in this field and laid a solid foundation for strengthening the strategic scientific and technological power of synthetic biotechnology. It is believed that a large number of institutions and companies will surge into the wave of technological innovation in this category in the coming years.Some scientific experiments on proteins are made of AI.

Synthetic biology is increasingly becoming a disruptive force in spawning the bioeconomy, gradually shifting from theoretical research to the manufacturing paradigm of the future. Theoretically, synthetic biology refers to the genetic design and modification of cells or living organisms to have biological functions that meet human needs, or even create new biological systems, by constructing biological functional components, devices and systems. Microorganisms can make many currently industrially manufactured products, so synthetic biology offers new ways to produce almost everything humans need, from spices and textiles to food and fuel.

The development of synthetic biology promises to make the supply chain less constrained by the availability of raw materials. Companies can design and manufacture unlimited quantities of products from scratch using cells. For example, 0.5 grams of bovine muscle cells could yield as much as 4.4 billion pounds of beef, more than Mexico consumes in a year. Synthetic biology has spawned science-based startups that are trying to transform traditional products and processes. Some scientific progress has been made in proteins are made of AI.

In recent years, AI algorithms based on deep learning have rapidly evolved, and their outstanding ability to continuously learn from massive amounts of data and intelligently explore unknown spaces effectively fits the current needs of engineering trial-and-error platforms in synthetic biology, showing great potential for high-latitude correlation information mining of complex biological features and design of living systems.

AI-led ab initio design applied to synthetic biology allows the purposeful design of standard biological components with specific functions, replacing some of the need to obtain effective expression and testing in experiments, spanning the time and cost of downstream experimental optimization, and millions of potentially valuable proteins that cannot be obtained biochemically can now be studied directly by design and used in biomedical and chemical, industry, agriculture, food, materials science, environmental protection, and many other fields, accelerating the application of synthetic biology for engineering landing.