BioEmu: An AI Leap in Understanding Protein Flexibility and Drug Discovery
UPSC Prelims Subject
Science and Technology (Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence - AI and its applications, Health).
Key Highlights from the News
Existing AI tools like AlphaFold, which predict the 3D structure of proteins, cannot provide information about protein movements and flexibility (protein flexibility). They only show a static form of a protein.
To overcome this limitation, researchers have developed a new deep learning system called BioEmu.
BioEmu can predict a complete range of shapes (equilibrium ensemble) that a protein can naturally adopt.
This will be greatly helpful in drug discovery, as it can help identify 'cryptic pockets' that drugs can bind to, which only appear temporarily.
BioEmu is much faster and more cost-effective than the current 'gold standard' method, molecular dynamics (MD).
However, BioEmu cannot show how a protein changes from one form to another (the pathway); that is a specialty of MD.
The article states that while AlphaFold provides the 'blueprint' of a protein, BioEmu provides its 'choreography' (movement).
Researchers believe that BioEmu and MD will function as complementary tools.
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