Protein Engineering

WashU engineers used synthetic biology to create SAM — a protein fiber combining mussel, spider silk, and amyloid sequences — that dissolves in formic acid within seconds and can be remade into equally strong fibers across multiple recycling cycles.

OpenAI's first domain-specific model for biology and drug discovery connects to 50+ scientific databases and outperformed human experts on RNA sequence tasks, but faces established rivals and a decade-long clinical validation gap.

QUT and Baker-lab researchers built AI-designed allosteric switches that turn on in the presence of small molecules, peptides, or whole proteins and work inside bacteria or on electrodes.

MIT engineers have built an AI system called VibeGen that generates entirely novel protein sequences optimized for specific vibrational and flexing patterns, inverting the traditional structure-first approach to protein design.