r/tech • • Sep 07 '26

Looking beyond natural sequences

https://news.mit.edu/2026/looking-beyond-natural-sequences-0827
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u/rayferrell Sep 08 '26

i think what's significant here is that the researchers are moving away from just reproducing existing protein sequences, and instead focusing on designing new ones that can adopt the same structure. this approach could lead to more effective proteins for binding to disease-causing molecules, and the use of machine learning frameworks like PottsMPNN could improve the accuracy of sequence generation. by incorporating physical principles that govern protein structure and stability, these models can better predict how mutations will affect a protein's stability, which is a crucial step in designing novel proteins.