News Artificial Intelligence

AI is helping scientists decode previously inscrutable proteins

The tools could help uncover better cancer treatments, illuminate rare diseases and more

This gray illustration on a dark blue background shows the curlicues of proteins being translated into protein sequences. The proteins flow into what looks like computer network diagraming and then a rain of letters, to illustrate how AI can decode proteins.

New AI tools to detect and describe previously undiscovered proteins have the potential to improve disease treatments and boost our basic biological knowledge.

Annekatrine Kirketerp-Møller

By Lauren Leffer

Generative artificial intelligence has entered a new frontier of fundamental biology: helping scientists to better understand proteins, the workhorses of living cells.

Scientists have developed two new AI tools to decipher proteins often missed by existing detection methods, researchers report March 31 in Nature Machine Intelligence.