Latest
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Accurate protein structure prediction accessible to all
Today we report the development and initial applications of RoseTTAFold, a software tool that uses deep learning to quickly and accurately predict protein structures based on limited information. Without the aid of such software, it can take years of laboratory work to determine the structure of just one protein. With RoseTTAFold, a protein structure can be…
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David Baker on Behind the Tech podcast
David Baker recently joined Microsoft’s Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott for Behind the Tech, a podcast that goes behind-the-scenes with today’s most innovative tech leaders. Listen via the Tweet below: Dr. David Baker is a professor of biochemistry and the director of @UWProteinDesign at the University of Washington, where his team is working to create novel…
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Hitching a ride into the brain
In a new paper, we describe a general approach for designing proteins that bind to exposed polar backbone groups at the edge of beta sheets with geometrically matched beta strands. We used this approach to create small proteins that bind to an exposed beta sheet on the human transferrin receptor, which shuttles interacting proteins across…
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Designed proteins assemble antibodies into modular nanocages
This week we report the design of new proteins that cluster antibodies into dense particles, rendering them more effective. In laboratory testing, such clustered antibodies neutralize COVID-19 pseudovirus, enhance cell signaling, and promote the growth of T cells more effectively than do free antibodies. This new method for enhancing antibody potency may eventually be used…
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A deep learning approach to protein design
Together with scientists at the Ovchinnikov lab at Harvard, we have applied deep learning to the challenge of protein design, yielding a new way to quickly create protein sequences that fold up as desired. This breakthrough has broad implications for the development of protein-based medicines and vaccines. Computational protein design has primarily focused on finding amino acid…
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trRosetta yields structures for every protein family
The field of protein structure prediction has greatly advanced in recent years thanks to increasingly accurate deep-learning methods. A new such method, called trRosetta developed at the Institute for Protein Design, has now made thousands of protein structures available via EMBL-EBI’s Pfam and InterPro data resource. More than 6300 protein structures have been predicted in this way and are now available…
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De novo design of transmembrane beta barrels
In a milestone for biomolecular design, a team of scientists has succeeded in creating new proteins that adopt one of the most complex folds known to molecular biology. These designer proteins were shown in the lab to spontaneously fold into their intended structures and embed into lipid membranes. Appearing in the journal Science [PDF],…
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De novo design of modular protein biosensors
This week we report [PDF] a new way to detect the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as antibodies against it. We have created protein-based sensors that glow when mixed with components of the virus or specific antibodies. This breakthrough could enable faster and more widespread testing in the near future. To directly detect key proteins that make up…