AI and the man catalyzing a bio-revolution

Protein biology has always been grounded in the relationship between structure and function but how we determine structure has changed dramatically. While it’s still common to crystallize a protein for X-ray diffraction and then back calculate its structure, supercomputing-powered, AI-driven tools have revolutionized approaches to getting a protein structure and engineer proteins for uses such as biocatalysis. Amazing right, but how? By using wet lab data to train and then compute, protein structure based on their sequence alone, which is why talking with this episode’s guest is so interesting. 

In this episode, Dr. Ahir Pushpanath, Enzyme Technology Innovation Lead at Basecamp Research, explains his passion for gaming as the reason he got interested in this unique computational approach to chemical catalysis. He takes us through the field’s fascinating history, recent breakthroughs, and their immense potential. You’ll hear about the intersection of his personal mission to provoke a bio-revolution with his company’s mission to combine nature and AI. 

Today at Basecamp Research, Ahir and his team are working to remove global bias from protein-specific AI training sets by collecting samples and data from diverse locations, but their primary focus is to understand the why of protein evolution. Ultimately, they hope to someday be able to help make a protein for every conceivable function by incorporating environmental pressure aspects into their sequence/structure/function AI models.

 

Related episodes: 

S4 : E3 Chemistry, Computers, and HumansS2: E5 Questioning the limits of Moore’s law

 

Other episodes on catalysis:

S3:E2 Making impossible moleculesS2:E1 Chemistry: a modern American dreamS2: E3  Rethinking catalysis

 

Bonus content!

Access bonus content curated by this episode’s guest by visiting www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast for links to recent publications, podcasts, books, videos and more.View the video version of this episode on www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast.

 

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About Your Host

Paolo Braiuca grew up in the North-East of Italy and holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from nearby esteemed University of Trieste, Italy.  He developed expertise in biocatalysis during his years of post-doctoral research in Italy and the UK, where he co-founded a startup company. With this new venture, Paolo’s career shifted from R&D to business development, taking on roles in commercial, product management, and marketing. He has worked in the specialty chemicals, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical markets in Germany and the UK, where he presently resides.

 

He is currently the Director of Global Market Development in the Laboratory Chemicals Division  at Thermo Fisher Scientific™ which put him in the host chair of the Bringing Chemistry to Life podcast. A busy father of four, in what little free time he has, you’ll find him inventing electronic devices with the help of his loyal 3D-printer and soldering iron. And if you ask him, he’ll call himself a “maker” at heart.