The wiggly targets known to scientists as “intrinsically disordered proteins” have for decades eluded capture by custom-made drugs and antibodies. But they played such important biological roles — activating opioid receptors; triggering protein misbehavior associated with neurodegeneration; killing insulin producing cells — that researchers kept after them.
Now scientists in a University of Washington lab led by Nobel laureate David Baker have cracked the challenge, using generative AI to create proteins that grab hold of the shapeshifting molecules. The discovery could unlock a suite of new drugs and diagnostic tools.
Almost half of the proteins found in humans are intrinsically disordered, “yet we’ve had no reliable way to drug [them],” Baker said in a statement. “These studies change that by giving scientists everywhere new tools for binding the unstructured half of biology.”
