Composing new proteins with artificial intelligence

Proteins are the building blocks of life, and consequently, scientists have long studied how they can improve proteins and design completely new proteins that perform new functions and processes. Traditionally, new proteins are created by either mimicking existing proteins or manually editing the amino acids that make up the proteins. This process, however, is time-consuming, and it is difficult to predict the impact of changing any one of the amino acid components of a given protein. In this week's APL Bioengineering, researchers in the United States and Taiwan explore how to create new proteins by using machine learning to translate protein structures into musical scores, presenting an unusual way to translate physics concepts across disparate domains. Each of the 20 amino acids that make up proteins has a unique vibrational frequency.