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by lysozyme 649 days ago
Agreed on the hopes that these methods lead to novel biocatalysts (but they aren’t quite there yet).

David Baker’s lab has recently published on using their own diffusion model (RFdiffusion) to design novel biocatalysts that perform hydrolysis using a catalytic triad of serine, aspartic acid, and histidine, as well as an oxyanion hole, which is much more complex than the binders designed by AlphaProteo [1].

It gives me hope that we’ll soon be able to design biocatalysts as good as natural ones, but for any problem we care about.

1. https://alexcarlin.bearblog.dev/novel-enzymes-from-a-diffusi...

1 comments

Yeah, I checked the preprint. Engineering serine hydrolases is kind of a low-hanging fruit, but a great starting point nevertheless!