The Prototype: This AI Model Could Make It Faster To Find New Medicines
In this week's edition of The Prototype, we look at a new AI model that could speed up drug discovery, how the Trump/Musk blowup could impact NASA, a new class of electronics and more. You can sign up to get The Prototype in your inbox here.
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The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in part to Deepmind's Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for the development of AlphaFold–an AI model that predicts the structure of proteins, the complex chemicals essential to making our bodies work. Since its inception, this model and others like it have been put to use in laboratories around the world, enabling new biological discoveries.
Now a team from MIT and pharmaceutical company Recursion, with support from Cancer Grand Challenges, have developed a tool that takes these principles further–and may help researchers find new medicines more quickly. Called Boltz-2, this open-source generative AI model can not only predict the structure of proteins, it can also predict its binding affinity–that is, how well a potential drug is able to interact with that protein. This is crucial in the early stages of developing a new medicine.
Until now, scientists could only find binding affinity in one of two ways: they could actually conduct an experiment to determine it, or they could use a complicated computer simulation process called FEP. In a paper published today, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, the team demonstrated that it could produce similar results to an FEP–but significantly faster.
'Boltz-2, in just 20 seconds, can match the performance of FEP, which usually takes from 6-12 hours,' said researcher Gabriele Corso. 'Pretty much changing the game.'
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SpaceX has been caught in the crossfire of the ongoing feud between Donald Trump and company founder Elon Musk. The two men have been sharing barbs over the President's proposed budget bill, with Musk criticizing it for including too much spending and increasing the deficit. On Thursday afternoon, the President posted on Truth Social that '[t]he easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.'
If Trump were to follow through on cancelling contracts, the biggest price may well be paid by NASA. Although the space agency played a crucial role in getting the company off the ground, SpaceX doesn't need it anymore. According to Musk, the company is currently bringing in around $15.5 billion a year in revenue. Forbes estimates that about 80% of this comes from its internet business, Starlink. And while SpaceX still gets plenty of government business, it also launches dozens of commercial spacecraft every year.
The reverse, however, isn't true. NASA relies heavily on SpaceX for its operations–the company's rockets launched more than half of the agency's space missions last year. And while NASA has other partners in aerospace, such as Boeing, many are years behind SpaceX in terms of development.
Read the whole story here.
A team of researchers at Virginia Tech invented a new kind of circuit board that is both more durable and easier to recycle than conventional electronics. It's composed of a soft plastic that's embedded with a liquid, conductive metal to carry electricity. The resulting electronics work even if they're bent out of shape and can even self-repair some damage. For recycling, they can be chemically deconstructed with a simple process that makes it easy to re-form into a new product.
Japanese space startup Ispace's second attempt to land a spacecraft on the Moon failed this week. According to the company, the laser rangefinder that its spacecraft used to measure the distance to the surface experienced communications difficulties. Because it didn't know its altitude, it didn't slow down enough for a safe landing, causing it to crash.
In my other newsletter, InnovationRx, Amy Feldman and I looked at the impact of Trump's proposed budget cuts on biomedical research and global health, news from the ASCO cancer meeting and a biotech company making drug products through fermentation.
Solar panels provide an unexpected environmental benefit–when they're placed in drought-prone grasslands, they boost soil moisture levels and increase plant growth by 20% compared to open fields, because of both the shade they provide and water that collects on them.
A new compound, called infuzide, showed antibacterial activity against strains that are resistant to antibiotics, which may provide a new weapon for doctors against infectious diseases.
Amazon is reportedly testing humanoid robots to see if they can be used to deliver packages. The retail giant has already been putting similar technology to work in its warehouses.
Researchers found that diatoms, a kind of algae with silica in its cell walls, could be introduced to the Moon's soil to make it capable of growing crops.
If you're in midlife and wondering if you should abandon your morning coffee, think twice–at least, if you're a woman. That's because a new analysis, which followed nearly 50,000 women for over 30 years, found that those who drank coffee (the good stuff, with caffeine) were more likely to age in a healthy way, maintaining both their physical and cognitive health across a wide variety of parameters, than those who drank tea or decaf.
As a middle-aged dad, two things I greatly enjoy are hard rock music and military history. Swedish metal band Sabaton scratches both of those itches at the same time by singing heavy ballads about historic battles and the people who fought them. Some of my favorite tracks of theirs include 'Night Witches' (about an all-female Soviet bomber regiment in World War II), 'The Last Stand' (about the Swiss Guards who defended Rome in battle in 1527), "Blood of Bannockburn" (about a major victory in the War of Scottish Independence) and 'To Hell And Back' (about American World War II hero Audie Murphy). They're like Schoolhouse Rock but with much better guitar solos.
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