AI and emerging tech

New tools changing biology and materials research. Each topic lists only known properties from the cited papers.

• AI materials discovery and self-driving labs (GNoME, A-Lab, robot chemist)
  3 studies · AI that predicts new crystals, and robots that run experiments on their own.
• AI protein structure prediction (AlphaFold, RoseTTAFold)
  3 studies · Deep-learning programs that predict a protein's 3D shape from its amino-acid sequence.
• AI-discovered antibiotics (halicin, abaucin)
  2 studies · Neural networks screening millions of molecules for new antibiotics.
• Artificial molecular machines
  2 studies · Single molecules designed to rotate or move when given energy (recognised by the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry).
• Base editing and prime editing
  3 studies · Gene-editing tools that change DNA letters without cutting both strands.
• CRISPR gene editing in human patients
  7 studies · Clinical trials where CRISPR-based gene editing was given to people, from edited blood stem cells for sickle cell disease to editing genes directly inside the body.
• DNA nanorobots and walkers
  2 studies · Tiny machines built from folded DNA that can carry cargo or walk along tracks.
• Nanoparticle drug delivery
  2 studies · Tiny carriers that deliver drugs to the right tissues.
• Nanopore sequencing
  2 studies · Reading DNA by pulling it through a tiny pore and measuring the electrical current.
• Organoid intelligence and DishBrain
  2 studies · Living neurons grown on electrodes and connected to computers.
• Plant nanobionics (sensor plants)
  2 studies · Plant nanobionics adds nanoparticles such as carbon nanotubes to living plants to give them new abilities, like boosting photosynthesis or signalling when they detect a chemical.
• Protein language models (ESM)
  2 studies · AI models trained on millions of protein sequences, the way chatbots are trained on text.
• Synthetic gene circuits
  2 studies · In 2000, two landmark papers showed that genes could be wired together like electronic parts, giving bacteria a memory switch and a ticking clock. They are often seen as the start of synthetic biology.