Passed this on to some biochem buddies and got the following response:
"There are plenty of constructs I'd love to have but don't have the time or expertise to make them. However, could this tool make them? There's so much expertise that goes into "if i hang this tag here, will the protein still traffic to where it needs to go/will it interfere with other domains/will it hang on the right side of the membrane/if I change literally one other amino acid the new tag will work but not if I leave it normal." The experts can already design proteins, but if this tool democratizes that, who's going to do QC?
AFAIK the real way people make substantive changes to proteins is to make 10 variants, test them all, and iterate the designs that worked best. Feels like we're miles away from being able to drag and drop functions."
And "In principle proteins are modular but I can give you ten examples where that principle ruined someone's life. The QC is hard and is case-by-case."
What is your editor aiming to help with? Is QC still the rate-limiting factor to innovating new protein designs with your tool? Does your tool help with QC in any way?
Thanks for sharing, I'm always interested to see new tech in this area.
"There are plenty of constructs I'd love to have but don't have the time or expertise to make them. However, could this tool make them? There's so much expertise that goes into "if i hang this tag here, will the protein still traffic to where it needs to go/will it interfere with other domains/will it hang on the right side of the membrane/if I change literally one other amino acid the new tag will work but not if I leave it normal." The experts can already design proteins, but if this tool democratizes that, who's going to do QC?
AFAIK the real way people make substantive changes to proteins is to make 10 variants, test them all, and iterate the designs that worked best. Feels like we're miles away from being able to drag and drop functions."
And "In principle proteins are modular but I can give you ten examples where that principle ruined someone's life. The QC is hard and is case-by-case."
What is your editor aiming to help with? Is QC still the rate-limiting factor to innovating new protein designs with your tool? Does your tool help with QC in any way?
Thanks for sharing, I'm always interested to see new tech in this area.