Speeding Up Evolution using Artificial Intelligence

By Shaharyar Lakhani

An artificial neural network, a computer system modeled on the human neural system, allows a computer to figure out what constitutes a particular subject on its own. A research team in the Ellington Lab at the University of Texas at Austin is using this concept to recognize the ‘amino acid-ness’ of individual amino acids in a protein structure. They call the project “JMBLYA” because like the dish, they mix various components together to make a final product, in this case the mutated amino acids to make a protein. Various tests of JMBLYA have now proven it to be a time machine of sorts, where it can predict the future evolution of a protein to be more stable, and allows us to intervene in the present to make the beneficial mutation.

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