Latest news with #proteinengineering
Geek Wire
17-07-2025
- Health
- Geek Wire
UW scientists use AI to crack ‘undruggable' proteins, opening door to new treatments
A protein engineered by University of Washington scientists wraps around its target. (Institute for Protein Design Image) The wiggly targets known to scientists as 'intrinsically disordered proteins' have for decades eluded capture by custom-made drugs and antibodies. But they played such important biological roles — activating opioid receptors; triggering protein misbehavior associated with neurodegeneration; killing insulin producing cells — that researchers kept after them. Now scientists in a University of Washington lab led by Nobel laureate David Baker have cracked the challenge, using generative AI to create proteins that grab hold of the shapeshifting molecules. The discovery could unlock a suite of new drugs and diagnostic tools. Almost half of the proteins found in humans are intrinsically disordered, 'yet we've had no reliable way to drug [them],' Baker said in a statement. 'These studies change that by giving scientists everywhere new tools for binding the unstructured half of biology.' University of Washington biochemist and Nobel Prize laureate David Baker at his office in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) Unlike typical proteins that fold into defined, set shapes, intrinsically disordered proteins are more like cooked spaghetti — they're floppy and lack a stable structure. The UW scientists built a library of protein parts that can be stitched together and applied to diverse targets, zeroing in on short stretches of amino acids for binding. The researchers tested their custom-made proteins with promising results: one successfully blocked pain signals in cultured human cells, while another dissolved protein clumps linked to type 2 diabetes. The technique also proved useful for detecting and tagging scarce but important molecules, including a disease marker screened for in newborns. The results were striking — designer proteins successfully latched onto 39 out of 43 targets tested, a 91% success rate. Each protein folds precisely around its intended target, creating a tight, specific embrace. The new approach to engineering proteins is described in two papers, one published today in the journal Science, and a second available as a preprint. The majority of more than two-dozen authors are from the UW's Department of Biochemistry and the university's Institute for Protein Design, which is led by Baker. Researchers worldwide can access the open-source software online. Kejia Wu, a co-author on a Science paper describing a new technology for protein design, at her thesis defense in 2024 at the University of Washington. (IPD Photo) Kejia Wu, a former graduate student with the Baker lab and now a post-doctoral fellow, was a co-lead author of the newly published Science paper alongside Hanlun Jiang and Derrick Hicks. The project was exciting, Wu said, because it was so difficult and provided 'space to have creative thoughts.' Most of those ideas are nonsense and will fail, Wu said. 'But then you will be able to narrow [it] down — one of your thoughts might make sense, and you just start working on it,' she continued. 'So that's the part I like the most. You're able to come up with untraditional methods, untraditional thinking.' And while it was difficult initially to strategize a solution for the intrinsically disordered proteins given their shapeless nature, that fluidity has an upside. A structured, folded protein typically has just one solution for a binding protein, Wu said. 'But the conformational plasticity … actually gives us freedom to target [the molecule] many different ways — and we only need one of them to work.'
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
RevolKa Ltd. Joins Research and Development Program for Innovative Biologics Funded by the Japanese Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)
RevolKa Fueling Up AI Protein Engineering Platform-based Therapeutic Program SENDAI, Japan, June 30, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--RevolKa Ltd. (RevolKa), a venture-backed biotech company providing a cutting-edge AI-driven protein engineering technology platform, called aiProtein® has announced its participation in a research and development program funded by a government grant of 54 million JPY (approximately US$372K for the first year) from the Japanese Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED). This project, set to continue over 4 years, is led by Prof. Mitsuo Umetsu of Tohoku University, who also serves as RevolKa's Chief Scientific Officer. This opportunity will further accelerate RevolKa's rare disease drug discovery and development efforts, previously announced on July 30th, 2024. ( core technology, aiProtein®: a robust directed protein evolution platform integrated with AI (artificial intelligence) creates exceptionally high performance proteins, going beyond natural evolution and offering advantages for therapeutic strategies. aiProtein® has generated many successful outcomes with many partner companies. About aiProtein® TechnologyRevolKa's proprietary technology, aiProtein® is an AI-assisted directed evolution platform for proteins. Naturally occurring proteins are linear polymers composed of amino acids and their derivatives, folding into a tertiary structure through internal complex atomic interactions to exhibit biological functions. Proteins have evolved their biological functional complexity over hundreds of millions of years. However, the relationship between protein sequence, structure, and function remains poorly understood to enable rational design of protein sequences for specific function. RevolKa's AI engine is trained with sequence-function relationship data, enabling statistical prediction of optimized protein sequences with desired functions. Furthermore, aiProtein® can evolve multiple properties simultaneously. This technology is a powerful and cost-effective solution for creating novel and highly functional proteins suitable for pharmaceutical and industrial applications. About RevolKa is a venture-backed biotechnology company founded in April 2021 by academic and industry experts in biotechnology and artificial intelligence. Our mission is to contribute to human well-being by creating novel proteins for therapeutics and industrial applications using our proprietary technology, aiProtein®. The name "RevolKa" is derived from the Latin word for evolution, "evolutio" and the Ainu (an indigenous Japanese people) word for raise, "reska". RevolKa's headquarters and laboratories are located in Sendai, Japan. The company's investors include D3 LLC, Tohoku University Venture Partners Co., Ltd., DEEPCORE Inc., and SBI Investment Co., Ltd. For more information, visit View source version on Contacts RevolKa IwaseEmail: info@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
