Proteins are a bit like lights in your house. They have a job to do, and getting them to do it involves switching them on and off with other proteins or molecules.

But it’s much easier to flip the switch on a light. In the body, billions of years of evolution have generated a complex web of molecular signals that act as biological switches for proteins.

This week, a team led by Dr. David Baker at the University of Washington offered a shortcut.

Using AI, they designed proteins that reliably transform themselves in the presence of a molecular switch—dubbed an “effector… Continue reading.