OpenAI has teamed up with the biotech business Retro Biosciences to make GPT-4b micro, which is a big step forward for both artificial intelligence and regenerative medicine. Unlike OpenAI’s language-based models, this specialized AI is only trained on protein sequences, biological literature, and 3D molecular structures.
The main goal of GPT-4b micro is to change the structure of proteins so that they can be used in regenerative medicine. Researchers told the AI to improve the Yamanaka factors, which are a group of proteins that won a Nobel Prize for being able to turn adult cells back into a youthful, stem cell-like state. People have long thought that cellular reprogramming could help fight aging and disease, but it hasn’t worked very well.
The AI’s work produced outcomes that were nothing short of amazing. The AI-made versions of the Yamanaka factors did much better than the genuine proteins in lab tests. An OpenAI blog article says that cells that were treated with the new factors exhibited “greater than a 50-fold higher expression of stem cell reprogramming markers than wild-type controls.” Also, the cells were able to fix DNA damage far faster, which made old cells act like they were young again.
This is a big step forward for research on longevity. Cellular reprogramming could help with a lot of age-related problems, such correcting diabetes and blindness and fixing organ shortages. The relationship between OpenAI, a leader in AI, and Retro Biosciences, a business that works to extend human life, shows how technology and life sciences are coming together more and more to solve some of the toughest problems facing humanity.
Google’s AlphaFold and other AI models try to guess the structure of proteins, whereas GPT-4b micro uses a different method that is based on language. It can suggest exact and new changes that can make proteins work better by looking at protein sequences as “sentences.”
This successful project shows that AI can do more than just analyze data; it can also help create biological answers. This marks the beginning of a new era of AI-driven scientific discovery that could have a big impact on human health and lifespan.