AI tools turned to creating designer proteins for personalised cancer therapies and antibiotics

Just a few years ago, predicting how a string of amino acids assembled into a functional protein was one of biology’s most formidable puzzles. That was until artificial intelligence (AI) cracked the problem wide open, earning global acclaim and even last year’s Nobel prize in chemistry.

That breakthrough relied on deep learning, a form of AI that learns from massive datasets to make predictions, such as the shape of proteins. Now, researchers are building on that momentum with generative AI. A powerful new class of AI model that, rather than just predicting structure, can imagine entirely new possibilities – from unknown protein sequences to novel treatments for a wide range of diseases.