
Researchers have learned to create custom versions of cellular proteins - giacaglia
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/science/protein-design-david-baker.html
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jfarlow
The ability to intelligently design these atomically-precise nanomachines will
be an ever-increasing part of our technological development. These proteins
are small enough to fit into the features of a modern processor, with a
physical resolution less than a nanometer - wet, warm, and 3D. And nature has
already given us a library of what these technologies can do - and now we're
even expanding those capabilities for our own purposes. Building new
biological sensors, products, and therapies - rewiring and inventing
biological I/O are now within reach.

If you want to build novel proteins from the other direction - based on
linking emeperically validated biological functions rather than trying to
calculate function from biochemical principles, check out our system at
Serotiny [1]. We're taking a bit of a different approach to protein design -
build new proteins by reusing biological components with known functions. And
though we help design proteins with new functions, these guys design
particular enzymatic pockets or predict particular structures - that's
amazing.

The Baker lab and all of their colleagues have put so much effort into this
goal - I'm eager to see what comes next.

[1]
[https://serotiny.bio/notes/pinecone/](https://serotiny.bio/notes/pinecone/)

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sinab
The results on the influenza trials are incredible, I really like the idea of
distributed computing in helping tackle these types of challenges.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the Rosetta project, here is a
link [https://boinc.bakerlab.org/](https://boinc.bakerlab.org/)

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melling
Has it been solved as predicted?

“Now, it looks as if he and his colleagues have cracked it. Thanks in part to
crowdsourced computers and smartphones belonging to over a million volunteers,
the scientists have figured out how to choose the building blocks required to
create a protein that will take on the shape they want.”

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SCAQTony
I wonder if this breakthrough could help build foodstuffs like breast milk for
infants or less expensive high quality meat?

~~~
toufka
Yep. And silks, and leathers, and therapetics, and biosensors.

See: Muufri, Bolt Threads, Modern Meadow, Cell Design Labs, Logic Ink, etc.

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Sniffnoy
Isn't protein folding NP-hard? How are they getting around that problem?

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adrianN
Something being NP-hard doesn't preclude algorithms that solve or sufficiently
approximate solutions for instances that occur in practice. SAT is also NP-
hard, but you can download solvers that can handle most huge instances you
need solved just fine.

~~~
Sniffnoy
Which is the sort of thing the article ought to talk about!

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stefanpie
Is there a direct statement of explanation or at a section staying exactly how
they solved the problem or what their approach was. I understand they have
done years of research and have multiple papers, but isnt it reasonable that
the article at least provide some explanation or discussion of their methods.

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0xBA5ED
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LetJMbu7uY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LetJMbu7uY)

Here's a cool video which gives an overview of the problem and some solution
approaches for anyone interested in the general topic.

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hacker_9
Is the Rosetta project not open source? Would be interesting to see how the
protein folding simulation is done.

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agumonkey
i wonder if it's related to the work on spiroligomer by Christian Schafmeister
(also crafting proteins)

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Sniffnoy
Non-mobile link: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/science/protein-design-
da...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/science/protein-design-david-
baker.html)

~~~
dang
Thanks, missed that one.

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srikar
Wish HN had promoted my submission instead. I submitted the story earlier in
the week:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16008608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16008608)

