AI BioDesign launches with $94.6 million to build proteins beyond nature

AI BioDesign, a new institute launched in Seattle on Sept. 3, is taking a different path from AlphaFold-style biology. Backed by $94.6 million from the Paul Allen estate and led by 2024 Nobel chemistry laureate David Baker and genomics researcher Jay Shendure, the group is focused on designing molecules that nature never evolved rather than predicting structures that already exist. Its core idea is not to spend the money on a larger general-purpose model, but on experimental throughput. The institute runs a loop in which AI proposes designs, the lab builds and measures them, and the results are fed back into the model for the next round. In one recent experiment, researchers tested 6 million designed DNA sequences in a single tube, a scale the article says would have taken years with traditional methods. The group argues that the bottleneck in protein design is no longer generating candidates but validating them fast enough. It also says its models, datasets, methods, reagents, and benchmarks will be open. At the same time, the effort raises biosafety questions around synthetic DNA screening, which Baker says should be addressed with sequence registration and purchaser records.