AI Designs Proteins That Can Kill Bacteria, Paving Way For Creation Of New Medicines

An artificial intelligence tool has managed to design anti-microbial proteins that were able to work in real life. Scientists say that this approach could be used to create new medicines.

For context, proteins are made of chains of amino acid, the sequence of which decides the protein's shape and function, New Scientist rightly reported. Profluent, a biotechnology startup in California successfully used an AI to design millions of new proteins. Then, they created a small sample to test whether they worked.

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Using AI to create bacteria-killing proteins

The AI in question is called ProGen and works similarly to text-generating AI tools. The backbone of any strong artificial intelligence tool is the data that it has been fed. ProGen was able to learn ways to generate new proteins by learning the grammar of how amino acids are able to combine to form 280 million proteins that currently exist.

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AI tools like ChatGPT require users to put in prompts in the form of words for it to weave essays together in a matter of seconds. A similar approach was used for ProGen. The only difference was that instead of asking it to write on a topic, scientists specified a group of proteins for the AI tool to focus on. In this specific case, they chose a group of proteins with antimicrobial activity.

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To ensure that the AI tool doesn't produce random "gibberish," scientists built checks into the tool. In addition, they tested a sample of the molecules proposed by ProGen in real cells. They managed to create 100 molecules of which 66 were able to take part in chemical reactions that are similar how natural proteins destroy bacteria. Scientists are sure that these new proteins could also kill bacteria.

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To prove this, scientists selected five proteins with the most strong reactions and then inserted them to a sample of Escherichia coli bacteria. Two of the proteins were able to destroy the bacteria.

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When the proteins were put under X-ray, scientists noted that while their amino acid sequences were 30% different from existing proteins, their shapes were able to match naturally occurring proteins.

The study's findings were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. What do you think about using AI to enhance natural processes? Let us know in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.