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Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., the Nobel Laureate best known for co-inventing the CRISPR system that has become the foundation for gene editing, is dipping her toes into a new, buzzy field: AI-powered protein design.
In a new paper, published today in Science, Doudna’s team described a new platform for generating novel gene editing enzymes. To prove the platform’s worth, the researchers designed a never-before-seen protein that can bind to and cut DNA.
The new enzyme is a TnpB, a tiny type of RNA-guided nuclease that is thought to be the evolutionary ancestor of the CRISPR-Cas system made famous by Doudna and her fellow Nobel winner Emmanuelle Charpentier, Ph.D.
But unlike other methods that repurpose enzymes found in nature, this new platform is capable of crafting proteins that are far afield from those forged by millennia of evolution.
“We were able to develop non-natural nucleases that were active in human, plant and bacterial cells,” Doudna told Fierce. “This approach opens the door to the possibility of designing an enzyme on-demand for a particular problem, whether it’s for treating a genetic disease...