Researchers led by University of Washington Nobel winner achieve a scientific breakthrough
A team from the University of Washington, led by Nobel laureate David Baker, has become the first to use artificial intelligence to successfully design effective enzymes from scratch.
The team combined the RFdiffusion model, an open-source AI program for generating proteins that was previously developed by Baker’s lab, with a newer tool called PLACER that helped them identify the most promising de novo enzyme candidates. “Now we can make these enzymes tailored to any reaction of interest, theoretically,” said Anna Lauko, a recent Ph.D. graduate from Baker’s lab. “It’s sort of flipped the way that we would do enzyme design.”
This breakthrough revolutionizes enzyme design, unlocking a wide range of applications and underscoring the region’s leadership in protein design.
Enzyme designers in the David Baker lab at the University of Washington in Seattle, from left: Sam Pellock, Anna Lauko, Kiera Sumida, David Baker, Donghyo Kim, Indrek Kalvet and Seth Woodbury. (UW Institute for Protein Design Photo / Ian Haydon)