{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-06-25-esm3-esmgfp/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-06-25-esm3-esmgfp/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2024-06-25-esm3-esmgfp","date":"2024-06-25","date_precision":"day","short_title":"ESM3 generates esmGFP, a new fluorescent protein estimated at '500 million years of evolution' from nature","deck":null,"takeaway":"EvolutionaryScale's ESM3, a multimodal protein language model, generated esmGFP, a bright fluorescent protein only 58% identical to the closest known fluorescent protein.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"Simulating 500 million years of evolution with a language model (Science)","url":"https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads0018","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"science.org"},{"n":2,"title":"EvolutionaryScale: ESM3 release","url":"https://www.evolutionaryscale.ai/blog/esm3-release","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"evolutionaryscale.ai"}],"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["EvolutionaryScale"],"title":"ESM3 generates esmGFP, a new fluorescent protein estimated at '500 million years of evolution' from nature","summary":"EvolutionaryScale's ESM3, a multimodal protein language model, generated esmGFP, a bright fluorescent protein only 58% identical to the closest known fluorescent protein. The authors estimate that distance equals over 500 million years of natural evolution. Published in Science (Jan 2025).","key_facts":["Announced 25 Jun 2024; Science paper published online Jan 2025","esmGFP: 58% sequence identity to the nearest known fluorescent protein","'500 million years of evolution' is the authors' estimate"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["biology","protein-language-model","protein-design","generative-ai"],"science":{"field":"biology","subfield":"protein design","problem":"Generating functional proteins far from natural sequences","result":"A functional fluorescent protein with low identity to any natural protein, generated by a language model.","open_since":"","ai_system":["ESM3"],"human_role":"Human-designed prompting and lab validation","verification":{"key":"peer-review","label":"Peer-reviewed","text":"Peer-reviewed in Science; lab-validated fluorescence"},"status":"confirmed","shock":""},"body_md":"## What happened\n\nESM3 was prompted with a few key residues of GFP's chromophore site and generated whole new proteins. One, esmGFP, glowed after refinement rounds.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nIt showed language models producing functional proteins far outside the natural sequence space.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2023-07-11-rfdiffusion-protein-design","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2023-07-11-rfdiffusion-protein-design/","date":"2023-07-11","date_precision":"day","short_title":"RFdiffusion: diffusion models design new proteins that work in the lab","deck":null,"takeaway":"It became the workhorse of AI protein design, underlying AI antivenoms, antibodies and enzymes.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":3,"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["University of Washington Institute for Protein Design"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true}],"short_url":null}