He recent Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and a Danish colleague have achieved this through the use of AI synthesizing antitoxins achieved 100% success against the deadly cobra venom. The team used artificial intelligence to design proteins that bind and neutralize one of the most deadly components of this venom.
David Baker has led a study that is trying to rethink the treatment of snakebites. It describes how deadly toxins in snake saliva can be made ineffective through the use of artificially engineered proteins, a technique that is expected to be more effective, less dangerous and more affordable.
The cobra’s venom
A scientific team from the US and Denmark has designed new proteins thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). They neutralize the deadly toxins of cobra venom. This breakthrough, tested on mice, offers a safer and more effective alternative to traditional antivenom and could transform the treatment of snakebites.
The details of the research is published in the journal Nature in an article led by David Bakerfrom the University of Washington School of Medicine, the last Nobel laureate in chemistry, and Timothy Patrick Jenkinsfrom the Technical University of Denmark.
Las Venomous snakebites affect between 1.8 and 2.7 million people every yearThis causes approximately 100,000 deaths each year and three times as many permanent disabilities, including loss of limbs. According to a statement from the Technical University of Denmark, citing data from the World Health Organization, the majority of injuries occur in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where “weak healthcare systems exacerbate the problem.”
Currently, these are the only antivenoms used to treat snakebite victims They come from animal plasma and often have high costs, limited efficacy and adverse side effects. In addition, the venom varies greatly from one snake species to another, meaning treatments must be personalized, the university reminds us.
In recent years, however, scientists have deepened their knowledge of snake venoms have developed new ways to combat its effectslike in this new job. The team led by Baker and Jenkins used deep learning tools to design new proteins that bind to and neutralize the cobras’ deadly toxins.
The research in mice focuses on so-called three-finger toxins. Although the engineered proteins do not yet protect against complete venom – a complex mixture of different toxins unique to each snake species – AI-generated molecules provide complete protection against lethal doses of three-finger toxins, with a mouse survival rate of 80-100%.
“The antitoxins we created are easy to discover using just computational methods, and they are cheap to produce and robust in laboratory tests,” Baker summarizes.
The new antitoxins
Las New antitoxins can be made from microbesavoiding traditional animal immunization – current antivenom sera are made from the antibodies generated by the venom in other animals. Production costs are also reduced.
In addition, Another advantage is that the designed proteins are smallso much so that they are expected to penetrate tissues better and neutralize toxins faster than current antibodies, the authors said. And because the proteins are created entirely on the computer using artificial intelligence software, time is spent on the discovery phase.
“We didn’t have to do multiple rounds of laboratory experiments to find antitoxins that worked well; design software So good that we only had to test a few molecules«, Bakker noted.
These are “encouraging results,” the authors say, but there is still work to be done. The drug development method described in The research could also be useful for other diseases, such as certain viral infections, and particularly favor resource-limited environments.