Pushmeet Kohli

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Today, our team is sharing a preprint on our new system for generative de-novo enzyme design, AlphaProtein Novo.

At @GoogleDeepMind, we have long focused on the building blocks of life (proteins). We developed AlphaFold to predict structure, trained language models to understand function, and built AlphaProteo to design de-novo binders. But proteins play many important roles in nature, such as enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions.

Designing entirely new enzymes from scratch to catalyze custom reactions has long been a holy grail for scientists. Our team has shown how AlphaProtein Novo can produce new-to-nature enzymes with state-of-the-art activity on 2 benchmark reactions. We’ve also designed custom enzymes to synthesize the pharmaceutical motif piperidine, and others to degrade the environmental plasticizer toxin DEHP.

While there is much more work to do in this direction, we’re excited to have demonstrated the ability to design functional proteins that go beyond what is known in nature. Huge congratulations to @jueseph, @ZvxyWu, Josh Abramson, the @GoogleDeepMind protein design team, and our collaborators in the @francesarnold & Liu Group! 🎉

🔗 Preprints and code: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.01.756017v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.01.754751v1 https://github.com/google-deepmind/alphaprotein-novo

views 31153 · likes 688 · reposts 107 · replies 7 (at fetch time)

Archived 2026-10-06 via fxtwitter (unofficial).

Today, our team is sharing a preprint on our new system for generative de-novo enzyme design, AlphaProtein Novo.

At @GoogleDeepMind, we have long focused on the building blocks of life (proteins). We developed AlphaFold to predict structure, trained language models to understand function, and built AlphaProteo to design de-novo binders. But proteins play many important roles in nature, such as enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions.

Designing entirely new enzymes from scratch to catalyze custom reactions has long been a holy grail for scientists. Our team has shown how AlphaProtein Novo can produce new-to-nature enzymes with state-of-the-art activity on 2 benchmark reactions. We’ve also designed custom enzymes to synthesize the pharmaceutical motif piperidine, and others to degrade the environmental plasticizer toxin DEHP.

While there is much more work to do in this direction, we’re excited to have demonstrated the ability to design functional proteins that go beyond what is known in nature. Huge congratulations to @jueseph, @ZvxyWu, Josh Abramson, the @GoogleDeepMind protein design team, and our collaborators in the @francesarnold & Liu Group! 🎉

🔗 Preprints and code: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.01.756017v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.01.754751v1 https://github.com/google-deepmind/alphaprotein-novo

views 31153 · likes 688 · reposts 107 · replies 7 (at fetch time)

Archived 2026-10-06 via fxtwitter (unofficial).