Recently I stumbled upon a technology feature article in Nature titled “Seven technologies to watch in 2024” authored by Michael Eisenstein. What striked (and, I have to say, slightly delighted) me in this article is how many of the breakthroughs foretold for this year (or more realistically, for a near future) belong to the field of biophysics.
The complete list of breakthroughs to watch selected by Eisenstein is:
- Deep learning for protein design,
- Deepfake detection,
- Large-fragment DNA insertion,
- Brain–computer interfaces,
- Super-duper resolution (sic),
- Cell atlases,
- Nanomaterials printed in 3D.
I think it won’t be particularly far-fetched, if I say that 5/7 (all apart from 2nd and 7th) are from the field of biophysics. In this series of blog posts, I attempt to trace the research connected to these potential breakthroughs in the program of this year’s meeting. I’m sure I will end up missing the majority of relevant research, sorry for that! Do not treat this as a complete guide, but rather as an encouragement to look for these potential breakthroughs here in Philly.
First position on the list is: “Deep learning for protein design”, which is not a surprise after the enormous success of AlphaFold2, a deep learning tool for protein structure prediction. As an example of paving way for this protein-design breakthrough, I found two abstracts submitted for this year’s BPS annual meeting. The first titled “De novo protein design targeting voltage-gated sodium channel 1.7 using RFdiffusion and AlphaFold2” and authored by Brandon J. Harris, Amogh Sukhthankar, and Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy, is a collaborative work between University of California Davis and San José State University. The authors applied RFDiffusion — a software inspired by AI image generation tools — and AlphaFold2 itself, to design proteins targeting voltage-gated sodium channels. In future, these newly-designed molecules may become next-generation painkillers.
The second abstract I’ve found is a contribution from Baker Lab at the University of Washington, the lab that is responsible for creating the RosettaFold and RFDiffusion software. This contribution titled “Computational design of binders targeting the VSDIV from NaV1.7 sodium channel” authored by Diego Lopez Mateos, Adam M. Murray, Hai M. Nguyen, Preetham Venkatesh, Brian Koepnick, David Baker, Heike Wulff, and Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy — a joint effort between University of California Davis, and University of Washington — addressed voltage-gated sodium channels and treating pain as well.
Obviously whether these breakthrough predictions are or are not premature, remains to be seen. What seems clear to me though is that nowadays biophysics is perceived in general-science media as a frontier of research and technology. With this thought in mind, enjoy BPS 2024!
Tomasz Skóra