The Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH) is pleased to announce a product concept award for Dr. Anindya Roy and his team at the UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design, including Drs. Jake Kraft and Hua Bai. They are developing a novel binder protein in an aerosolized delivery system to treat idiopathic pulmonary …
A COVID-19 vaccine developed at the University of Washington School of Medicine has proven safe and effective in late-stage clinical testing. SK bioscience, the company leading the vaccine’s clinical development abroad, is seeking full approval for its use in South Korea and beyond. If approved by regulators, the vaccine will be made available through COVAX, …
Today we report in Nature Biotechnology the design of custom protein-based biosensors that can detect coronavirus-neutralizing antibodies in blood. This research, which builds on prior sensor design technology developed in the Baker lab, was led by Baker lab postdoctoral scholars Jason Zhang, PhD, and Hsien-Wei (Andy) Yeh, PhD. From Behind the Paper: [W]e utilized the …
Today we report in Science the design of rotary devices made from custom proteins. These microscopic “axles” and “rotors” come together to form spinning assemblies, rather than being locked in just one orientation. Such mechanical coupling is a key feature of any machine. The new axle-rotor devices — which are each about a billion times …
Today we report in Nature a new method for generating protein drugs. Using Rosetta-based design, an international team designed molecules that can target important proteins in the body, such as the insulin receptor, as well as proteins on the surface of viruses. This solves a long-standing challenge in drug development and may lead to new treatments for …
A new approach for creating custom protein complexes yields asymmetric assemblies with interchangeable parts. Today we report in Science the design of new protein assemblies made from modular parts. These complexes — which adopt linear, branching, or closed-loop architectures — contain up to six unique proteins, each of which remains folded and soluble in the absence …
The journal Science has selected artificial intelligence algorithms that predict the three-dimensional shapes of proteins — as well as the blizzard of protein structures they have revealed — as their 2021 Breakthrough of the Year. We are honored to have our work in this field recognized alongside that of the company DeepMind. As David Baker told …
Just as convincing images of cats can be created using artificial intelligence, new proteins can now be made using similar tools. In a new report in Nature, we describe the development of a neural network that “hallucinates” proteins with new, stable structures. “For this project, we made up completely random protein sequences and introduced mutations …
This article was written by Renske Dyedov (UW) Key to advancing any new scientific discovery is the ability for researchers to independently repeat the experiments that led to it. In science today, particularly biology, the lack of reproducibility between experiments is a major problem that slows scientific progress, wastes resources and time, and erodes the …
A team led by scientsts in the Baker lab has combined recent advances in evolutionary analysis and deep learning to build three-dimensional models of how most proteins in eukaryotes interact. This breakthrough has significant implications for understanding the biochemical processes that are common to all animals, plants, and fungi. This open-access work appears in Science. …
This report was written and translated into English by SK bioscience. (Image: SK bioscience) SK bioscience (CEO Jae-yong Ahn) announced on November 4th that the company has confirmed a positive immune response and safety in the final analysis result of the phase I/II clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate, ‘GBP510,’ co-developed with the Institute …
To better identify and prevent future pandemics, the University of Washington has become a partner in a five-year global, collaborative agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development. The newly launched Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses, or DEEP VZN project, has approximately $125 million in anticipated funding and will be led …
Washington Research Foundation (WRF) has awarded a $700,000 phase three technology commercialization grant to Stephanie Berger, Ph.D., to support the development of an oral biologic for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Berger, a translational investigator at the Institute for Protein Design, received two previous grants totaling $300,500 from WRF for this work. IBD affects roughly three …
Tadataka “Tachi” Yamada MD, KBE served as the Advisory Board Chair of our Institute since its founding almost ten years ago. His tremendous mentorship helped us in innumerable ways to grow from a single-PI Institute founded by David Baker to a group of five faculty and almost 200 scientists and staff. Tachi also helped …
Today we report the development and initial applications of RoseTTAFold, a software tool that uses deep learning to quickly and accurately predict protein structures based on limited information. Without the aid of such software, it can take years of laboratory work to determine the structure of just one protein. With RoseTTAFold, a protein structure can be …
From our deep-learning research to our new clinical trials, we are pleased to present this overview of the progress made at the Institute for Protein Design during the past year. 2021 Annual Report
Washington Research Foundation (WRF) has awarded a $250,000 phase 2 technology commercialization grant to Anindya Roy, Ph.D., to further develop a novel miniprotein binder for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Roy, an acting instructor in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design (IPD), is building on positive results …
Two different candidate vaccines developed by researchers at the Institute for Protein Design recently entered human clinical trials. GBP510, a candidate COVID-19 vaccine, is undergoing a combined Phase 1/2 trial. Flu-Mos-v1, a candidate mosaic influenza vaccine, is undergoing Phase 1 testing. Candidate COVID-19 vaccine Our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate was created with structure-based vaccine design techniques …
IPD researchers together with collaborators at the National Institutes of Health have developed experimental flu shots that protect animals from a wide variety of seasonal and pandemic influenza strains. The lead vaccine candidate has entered human clinical testing at the NIH. If it proves safe and effective, these next-generation influenza vaccines may replace current seasonal …
The Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH) has announced investments in three new awards, including one to researches at the Institute for Protein Design, to expedite early-stage product development for promising biomedical innovations. The three awards are intended to reduce skin injury from wound dressing, to treat COVID-19 induced viral sepsis, and to …
This week we report the design of new proteins that cluster antibodies into dense particles, rendering them more effective. In laboratory testing, such clustered antibodies neutralize COVID-19 pseudovirus, enhance cell signaling, and promote the growth of T cells more effectively than do free antibodies. This new method for enhancing antibody potency may eventually be used …
Scientists at the IPD and Ovchinnikov lab at Harvard have applied deep learning to the challenge of protein design, yielding a new way to quickly create protein sequences that fold up as desired. This breakthrough has broad implications for the development of protein-based medicines and vaccines. Computational protein design has primarily focused on finding amino …
The field of protein structure prediction has greatly advanced in recent years thanks to increasingly accurate deep-learning methods. A new such method, called trRosetta developed at the Institute for Protein Design, has now made thousands of protein structures available via EMBL-EBI’s Pfam and InterPro data resource. More than 6300 protein structures have been predicted in this way and are …
Biochemists have created barrel-shaped proteins that embed into lipid membranes, expanding the bioengineering toolkit. In a milestone for biomolecular design, a team of scientists has succeeded in creating new proteins that adopt one of the most complex folds known to molecular biology. These designer proteins were shown in the lab to spontaneously fold into their …
Washington Research Foundation (WRF) has provided a $250,000 grant to support work carried out by Stephanie Berger, Ph.D., on a new therapeutic for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). A grant of $50,500 from WRF in 2019 and an award from Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH) in 2020 enabled Berger, a translational investigator at the …
This week we report [PDF] a new way to detect the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as antibodies against it. Scientists at the Institute for Protein Design have created protein-based sensors that glow when mixed with components of the virus or specific antibodies. This breakthrough could enable faster and more widespread testing in the near …
Today we report the design of a new class of protein material that interacts with living cells without being absorbed by them. These large, flat arrays built from multiple protein parts can influence cell signaling by clustering and anchoring cell surface receptors. This breakthrough could have far-reaching implications for stem cell research and enable the …
Today we report in Cell (PDF) the design and initial preclinical testing of an innovative nanoparticle vaccine candidate for the pandemic coronavirus. It produces virus-neutralizing antibodies in mice at levels ten-times greater than is seen in people who have recovered from COVID-19. Compared to vaccination with the soluble SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, which is what many leading …
The Breakthrough Prize Foundation today announced the winners of the 2021 Breakthrough Prize, recognizing an array of achievements in the Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics. The traditional gala award ceremony, attended by superstars of movies, music, sports and tech entrepreneurship, has been postponed until March 2021. David Baker, director of the Institute for Protein …
Today we report in Science [PDF] the design of small proteins that protect cells from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In experiments involving lab-grown human cells, the activity of the lead antiviral candidate produced (LCB1) was found to rival that of the best-known SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies. LCB1 is currently being evaluated in rodents. Coronaviruses …
In a new paper [PDF] appearing in Science, a team of IPD researchers together with colleagues at UW Medicine and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center demonstrate a new way to precisely target cells — including those that look almost exactly like their neighbors. They designed nanoscale devices made of synthetic proteins that target a therapeutic agent only to cells with …
From our COVID-19 response to spinout highlights, we are pleased to present this overview of the progress made at the Institute for Protein Design during the past year. Annual Report 2020
IPD researchers have developed a new vaccine design strategy that could confer improved immunity against certain viruses, including those that cause AIDS, the flu, and COVID-19. Using this technique, viral antigens are attached to the surface of self-assembling, de novo designed protein nanoparticles. This enables an unprecedented level of control over the molecular configuration of the resulting …
The Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH) has announced its first awards to facilitate early-stage product development for two biomedical innovations. WE-REACH invests up to $200,000 per awarded project. Funding comes from the NIH with matching support from our partners at the Institute of Translational Health Sciences, CoMotion, the Institute for Protein …
Trigger warning: mentions acts of violence and racism We, as members of the Rosetta Commons, recognize the grief and frustration of many members of our community and reaffirm our commitment to the safety and dignity of Black lives. The past few months have been traumatic. The recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, …
The newly formed United World Antiviral Research Network (UWARN) will bring together researchers from institutions in several countries to spot and confront emerging pandemic viruses. The network will provide surveillance for emerging pandemic viruses, develop urgently needed diagnostics and therapeutics, and expand understanding of viral immune responses, which is key to vaccine development. The network will …
On the day the number of confirmed global COVID-19 infections crossed one million, a team of over three hundred scientists from around the world kicked off a virtual conference aimed at stopping the virus. The event was an emergency meeting of member labs from the RosettaCommons, a consortium of over 90 laboratories who together develop …
Researchers from our vaccine design team recently participated in a Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ about our SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research. Reddit users asked over a hundred questions by the time the live event ended — we are sorry we could not address them all. We were lucky to be joined by Lexi Walls, a postdoctoral scholar …
The same basic tools that allow computers to function are now being used to control life at the molecular level, with implications for future medicines and synthetic biology. Together with collaborators, we have created artificial proteins that function as molecular logic gates. These tools, like their electronic counterparts, can be used to program the behavior …
As schools, museums, offices and stores shutter to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, millions of people are now finding themselves stuck at home. Fortunately, even in these trying times, there are are small steps that anyone can be take to help combat COVID-19. One option is to donate to biomedical research — but …
Today we report the design of protein sequences that adopt more than one well-folded structure, reminiscent of viral fusion proteins. This research moves us closer to creating artificial protein systems with reliable moving parts. In nature, many proteins change shape in response to their environment. This plasticity is often linked to biological function. While computational …
You don’t have to be a scientist to do science! By playing the computer game Foldit, you can help discover new antiviral drugs that might stop the novel coronavirus. The most promising solutions will be manufactured and tested at the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design in Seattle. Foldit is run by academic research scientists. It is free …
PvP Biologics is on a mission to develop a highly-effective therapeutic to reduce the burden of living with celiac disease. They are advancing an oral enzyme — TAK-062 — designed to break down gluten in the stomach. This exciting research, which began as an iGEM project in 2011, was matured at the Institute for Protein …
We are happy to report that the Rosetta molecular modeling suite was recently used to accurately predict the atomic-scale structure of an important coronavirus protein weeks before it could be measured in the lab. Knowledge gained from studying this viral protein is now being used to guide the design of novel vaccines and antiviral drugs. …
With $4 million in matching funds from the National Institutes of Health, the University of Washington has created a new integrated center to match biomedical discoveries with the resources needed to bring innovative products to the public and improve health. “The University of Washington and regional partner institutions produce some of the most exciting biomedical …
The Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington held the second symposium aimed at providing strategies to address diversity challenges in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The Strategies for Cultivating Inclusion in STEM (SCI-STEM) symposium featured leading keynote speakers, panel discussions, and interactive breakout sessions. Members of the STEM community at all …
Undergraduate researcher Radhika Dalal took home a poster award at this year’s Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Anaheim, California. Her mentors include IPD graduate student Una Natterman and Quinton Dowling. Way to go Radhika! And congratulations to all the award winners:
Icosavax, Inc. today announced its launch with a $51 million Series A financing. The company was founded on computationally designed self-assembling virus-like particle (VLP) technology developed here at the IPD (Cell 2019, Preview). The proceeds of the financing will be used to advance the company’s first vaccine candidate, IVX-121, for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) for …
IPD-spinout Neoleukin Therapeutics announced this week a merger with Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded company. The combined company will change its name to Neoleukin Therapeutics, and will continue to advance its Rosetta-designed protein platform for cancer, inflammation, and autoimmune diseases. Neoleukin was spun out of the IPD Translational Investigator Program in January. As a result …
Researchers from the IPD and UCSF recently participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything about LOCKR, our new de novo protein switch. Reddit users had dozens of fantastic questions — so many, in fact, that the team ran out of time before they could address them all. “The questions were both insightful and interesting,” says …
Today we report in Nature the design and initial applications of the first completely artificial protein switch that can work inside living cells to modify—or even commandeer—the cell’s complex internal circuitry. The switch is dubbed LOCKR, short for Latching, Orthogonal Cage/Key pRotein. “In the same way that integrated circuits enabled the explosion of the computer chip industry, these versatile and dynamic …
Jeffrey Perkel, technology editor at Nature, has just written a feature on de novo protein design. PDF
Today we report in Science the identification of hundreds of previously uncharacterized protein–protein interactions in E. coli and the pathogenic bacterium M. tuberculosis. These include both previously unknown protein complexes and previously uncharacterized components of known complexes. This research was led by postdoctoral fellow Qian Cong and included former Baker lab graduate student Sergey Ovchinnikov, now a John Harvard Distinguished Science …
Today we report the design of synthetic protein arrays that assemble on the surface of mica, a common and exceptionally smooth crystalline mineral. This work, which was performed in collaboration with the De Yoreo lab at PNNL, provides a foundation for understanding how protein-crystal interactions can be systematically programmed. Our goal was to engineer artificial proteins to self-assemble on …
Citizen scientists can now use Foldit to successfully design synthetic proteins. The initial results of this unique collaboration appear today in Nature. Brian Koepnick, a recent PhD graduate in the Baker lab, led a team that worked on Foldit behind the scenes, introducing new features into the game that they believed would help players home in on …
Today the Baker lab shares some exciting collaborative results of their efforts to design rigid and tunable receptor dimerizers. The first authors of this report are Kritika Mohan, Stanford, and George Ueda, IPD. From Science: Exploring a range of signaling Cytokines are small proteins that bind to the extracellular domains of transmembrane receptors to activate signaling pathways …
Natural proteins often shift their shapes in precise ways in order to function. Achieving similar molecular rearrangements by design, however, has been a long-standing challenge. Today, a team of researchers lead by scientists at the IPD report in Science the rational design of synthetic proteins that move in response to their environment in predictable and tunable …
This week we report in NSMB a combined computational design and experimental selection approach for creating proteins that bind selectively to closely related receptor subtypes. This project was led by Luke Dang, a former Baker lab graduate student, and Yi Miao, a postdoctoral researcher in Christopher Garcia’s lab at Stanford. Abstract: To discriminate between closely related members of …
This week we report in JACS a general approach for designing self-assembling 2D protein arrays. This project was led by Zibo Chen, a recent Baker lab graduate student, and featured collaborators from the, DiMaio, De Yoreo and Kollman labs at UW. Abstract: Modular self-assembly of biomolecules in two dimensions (2D) is straightforward with DNA but …
Each year, a panel here at the University of Washington nominates a small number postdocs of the UW Graduate School’s Postdoc Mentoring Award. We are thrilled to share that this year four of our postdocs have been nominated! Each brings invaluable encouragement and advice to their graduate student and undergraduate trainees. Winner: Gabriella Wolff, Biology Finalists: Michael Beyeler, …
Yesterday we were thrilled to reveal that we have been selected as part of The Audacious Project, a philanthropic collaborative organized by TED! You can read all about our project here. In short, we are expanding our institute into a global hub of innovation so that we can apply protein design to some of the …
Today we report in Cell our first computer-designed nanoparticle vaccine targeting respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Millions of children will visit hospitals this year, sickened by RSV. Infection is usually mild, causing only fevers, runny noses and frightened parents. But, in severe cases, barking coughs and painful wheezing can indicate serious respiratory complications, including bronchiolitis and …
Today we report in Nature the first de novo designed proteins with anti-cancer activity. These compact molecules were designed to stimulate the same receptors as IL-2, a powerful immunotherapeutic drug, while avoiding unwanted off-target receptor interactions. We believe this is just the first of many computer-generated cancer drugs with enhanced specificity and potency. “People have tried for 30 …
Readers of Nature’s News & Views selected an article about our work as their 2018 Reader’s Choice! The article, written by Roberto Chica of the University of Ottawa, does a fantastic job detailing our recent publication on de novo fluorescence-activating proteins — and the challenges of de novo protein design more generally. From the article: …
To close out the year, Baker Lab scientists published a new report describing the creation of proteins that mimic DNA. We believe this breakthrough will aid the creation of bioactive nanomachines. DNA is a widely used building material at the nanoscale because it is simple and predictable: A pairs with T and C pairs with …
Dr. Ingrid Pultz, an IPD Translational Investigator and Chief Scientific Officer at PvP Biologics, has written a special report for the American Council on Science and Health about how protein design is being used to help fight celiac disease. Pultz describes how an international competition, a video game, and venture capital all aligned to help …
The basic parts of proteins — helices, strands and loops — can be combined in countless ways. But certain combinations are trickier than others. This week scientists from the IPD, along with collaborators in Brno and Santa Cruz, published the first-ever example of designed non-local beta-strand interactions. Beta-sheet proteins carry out critical functions in biology, …
In the summer of 1961, Osamu Shimomura drove across the country in a cramped station wagon to scoop jellyfish from the docks of Friday Harbor. He wanted to discover what made them glow. It took Shimomura and other biochemists more 30 years to find a full answer. By then, recombinant DNA technology allowed researchers to …
It was a great year for the Institute for Protein Design and we couldn’t have done all of our amazing work without the support from our donors and contributors! Thank you to everyone who helped us, whether through a donation, collaboration, playing Foldit, or otherwise. We’ve filled the IPD Newsletter with all of the progress …
Gift seeks universal flu vaccine and will advance Rosetta software Seattle — The Institute for Protein Design (IPD) at UW Medicine in Seattle has been awarded $11.3 million from the Open Philanthropy Project to support the institute’s technological revolution in protein design and support its work on the development of a universal flu vaccine. The …
Update 2018-07-26: The 2018 SCI-STEM Symposium was recently featured in an eLife article. The Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington held its first ever symposium aimed at providing strategies to address diversity challenges in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The Strategies for Cultivating Inclusion in STEM (SCI-STEM) symposium featured leading keynote …
It is now possible to create complex, custom-designed transmembrane proteins from scratch ! Today Baker lab members published in Science “Accurate computational design of multipass transmembrane proteins” The Abstract reads as follows: The computational design of transmembrane proteins with more than one membrane-spanning region remains a major challenge. We report the design of transmembrane monomers, …
At the end of a historic year for protein design, the Baker lab was honored to be profiled in the New York Times by famed science writer Carl Zimmer. Zimmer writes about the technology, progress and promise in the field, noting the contributions from our wonderful crowdsource participants. Graphic: John Hersey / New York Times On the technology front, …
Today marks another major step forward for peptide based drug discovery. IPD researchers report in Science the computational design of a new world of small cyclic peptides, “Macrocycles”, increasing the number of the known kinds of these molecules by multiple fold. The conceptual art image below “Illuminating the energy landscape” shows the power of computational design …
Published today in Nature, IPD researchers describe the first synthetic protein assemblies — dubbed synthetic nucleocapsids — that encapsulate their own genome and evolve in complex environments. Synthetic nucleocapsids are built to resemble viral capsids and could be used in future to deliver therapeutics to specific cells and tissues. These icosahedral protein assemblies are based off of …
Foldit alfatoxin project update 7/16/2018 Today, scientists from of the Institute for Protein Design will join Foldit gamers from around the world to help design an enzyme that can neutralize aflatoxin — a cancer-causing toxin produced by certain fungi that are found on agricultural crops such as corn, peanuts, cottonseed, and tree nuts. Foldit is a citizen …
Mark your calendars! September 27, 2017 is the day the doors opened to whole new world of targeted therapeutics. The Baker lab and numerous talented collaborators published in Nature that it is now possible to conduct “Massively parallel de novo protein design for targeted therapeutics”. Three factors make this possible: Rosetta molecular modeling algorithms for computational protein …
It was a great year for the Institute for Protein Design and we couldn’t have done all of our amazing work without the support from our donors and contributors! Thank you to everyone who helped us, whether through a donation, collaboration, playing Foldit, or otherwise. We’ve filled the IPD Newsletter with all of the progress …
Today, the first IPD spin out company Cyrus Biotechnology announced the closing of an $8M total Series A financing. The investment was led by Trinity Ventures, with participation from OrbiMed Advisors, SpringRock Ventures, W Fund, WRF Capital (a major supporter of the IPD), and individual investors. Congratulations Cyrus team! Cyrus is commercializing Cyrus Bench® an innovative user friendly software as …
Today, Baker lab spin out company Arzeda announced that it had raised $12 million in a Series A round of funding led by OS Fund and including Bioeconomy Capital and Sustainable Conversion Ventures, as well as a follow-on investment from Arzeda’s seed investor, WRF Capital (a major supporter of the IPD). The new funding will enable “Technology …
The Matrix movie (1999) depicts a future in which the reality perceived by most humans is actually a computer simulated reality called “the Matrix”. Published today in Science, the Baker lab and collaborators report on a new kind of Matrix – a new reality for large scale computational protein design which can achieve massive data driven improvements in our ability to design highly stable, …
Today, a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Washington, Fred Hutch, and The Scripps Research Institute published in Nature Biotechnology the computational design of a trimeric influenza-neutralizing protein that binds extremely tightly to the H3 hemagglutinin of 1968 Hong Kong pandemic influenza virus (A/Hong Kong/X31/1968). It also cross-reacts with human relevant H1, H2 and …
Researchers in the Baker lab at the Institute for Protein Design, working in collaboration with the Joint Genome Institute, published in Science the solved folds and structures for hundreds of protein families. This “big data” approach to large scale protein structure determination was made possible by a team effort that analyzed billions of gene sequences …
A few months ago, it was announced that the Institute for Protein Design is one of UW Medicine’s Priorities in their ACCELERATE campaign. We are grateful to have this support not only from UW Medicine, but also from donors who are contributing funds so that we may continue our work. One such gift came from …
The latest paper coming out from the IPD was published today on the Science website. It’s titled “Principles for designing proteins with cavities formed by curved β sheets” with first co-authors Enrique Marcos and Benjamin Basanta, a former and current IPD member, respectively. Other IPD members on the paper include Tamuka Chidyausiku, Gustav Oberdorfer, Daniel-Adriano …
On January 5th, recent IPD spin-out PvP Biologics announced their agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. The $35 million deal includes an option to acquire PvP at a later point. PvP has released a statement on their website, and the agreement was highly covered by other news sources, which can be found at the …
We are happy to congratulate Ingrid Swanson Pultz, an IPD Translational Investigator, and Clancey Wolf, a Research Scientist, on PvP Biologics‘ spinout! The news was announced this morning and has been circulated through various outlets. The company, created in 2015, is focusing on advancing KumaMax, a gluten-fighting enzyme that could potentially be taken orally to …
Seattle-based Arzeda, a computational and synthetic biology company that was spun out from the University of Washington labs of Prof. David Baker, recently announced that its high-throughput, automated pipeline for protein engineering and pathway discovery had been validated by the production of two keystone molecules. The announcement is a major technical milestone for Arzeda’s approach …
Published today in Science Philanthropy Alliance, David Baker, Director of the Institute for Protein Design describes how the opportunities for computational protein design are endless — with new research frontiers and a huge variety of practical applications to be explored, from medicine to energy to technology. This is an exciting time as we are undergoing a technological revolution …
Today is Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy Day, and the Institute for Protein Design is collaborating with the Jain Foundation and Foldit community to to model the structure of human dysferlin protein (DYSF), an important protein for normal muscle function. Numerous mutations in the gene that encodes DYSF protein are known to be the cause of …
Small constrained peptides combine the stability of small molecule drugs with the selectivity and potency of antibody-based therapeutics. However, peptide-based therapeutics have largely remained underexplored due to the limited diversity of naturally occurring peptide scaffolds, and a lack of methods to design them rationally. New computational design and wet lab methods developed at the Institute for …
It was a great year for the Institute for Protein Design and we couldn’t have done all of our amazing work without the support from our donors and contributors! Thank you to everyone who helped us, whether through a donation, collaboration, playing Foldit, or otherwise. We’ve filled the IPD Newsletter with all of the progress …
Earlier this month, Baker lab researchers reported the computational design of a hyperstable 60-subunit protein icosahedron in Nature (Hsia et al); icosahedral protein structures are commonly observed in natural biological systems for packaging and transport (e.g. viral capsids). The described design was composed of 60 trimeric protein building blocks that self-assembled in a nanocage. In …
The Baker lab, in collaboration with Neil King, Trisha Davis and Tamir Gonen’s labs, recently had a paper published in Nature about a stable icosahedral nanocage whose applications could span anywhere from drug delivery to vaccine design! The title is “Design of a hyperstable 60-subunit protein icosahedron” and it was published online June 15, 2016. …
A paper recently published in Science by several members of the IPD, in collaboration with others, entitled “De novo design of protein homo-oligomers with modular hydrogen-bond network-mediated specificity,” discusses designing proteins in a similar way to DNA so that they may be used to engineer structures. Geekwire has written up a great article about the paper; …
Over the weekend, Foldit had its 8th birthday! In celebration, they will be tweeting (@Foldit) fun facts and infographics on their feed. Haven’t heard of the game or tried playing it yet? What better time than now! Click here to learn more and to join an ever-growing community that spans the world. Who knows, maybe …
On Monday, representatives from the IPD spoke on a panel at Xconomy’s EXOME’s Seattle’s Life Science Disruptors 2016 event. It was titled “Proteins Like You’ve Never Seen” and included Lucas Nivon (Cyrus), Ingrid Swanson Putlz (PvP Biologics), Aaron Chevalier (Virvio), and David Baker. The event’s description was as follows: Seattle is one of the few …
We are proud to announce that last week, David was named winner of Seattle Business‘ 2016 Leaders in Health Care Awards for “Outstanding Achievement in Delivery of Digital Health.” The award was one of several given out, with categories ranging from “Lifetime Achievement” to “Outstanding Achievement: Health Care Delivery.” Although David was ill and unable …
On February 18th, WRF Fellow Franziska Seeger gave a talk about proteins at Ignite Seattle. Presenters have 5 minutes to speak to the audience and deliver whatever point they are trying to get across. They also cannot control their slides, so they have to have their timing perfect. Talk about pressure! However, we believe that …
On February 9th, Arzeda, and Mitsubishi Rayon Ltd announced that they would “collaborate on development of new processes for industrial chemicals production.” Read more about it on Mitsubishi Rayon’s website, here, or on Arzeda’s site, here. Arzeda is an IPD spin-out, of which David Baker is a co-founder and Scientific Advisory Board Member.
