Researchers led by Susana Vázquez Torres, a computational biologist in Nobel Prize winner David Baker’s protein design lab at the University of Washington, have used AI to create new proteins that neutralize lethal snake venom in laboratory tests. The work, published in Nature, points to a possible new approach to treating snakebites, which kill over 100,000 people every year and cause 300,000 severe injuries annually.
The study focused on venomous snakebites that affect farmers, herders and children in rural communities across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America. The source said current treatment has changed little in more than a century and that antivenoms are expensive, difficult to manufacture and often ineffective against the deadliest toxins.
Using NVIDIA Ampere architecture and L40 GPUs, the Baker Lab used deep learning models including RFdiffusion and ProteinMPNN to generate millions of potential antitoxin structures in silico. The team then used AI tools to predict how the designer proteins would interact with snake venom toxins and narrow the search to the most promising candidates.
According to the source, the newly designed proteins bound tightly to three-finger toxins (3FTx), the deadliest components of elapid venom, and showed 80–100% survival rates in mouse studies after exposure to otherwise lethal neurotoxins. The proteins were also described as stable, heat-resistant and easy to manufacture, with no refrigeration required.
The research says that unlike traditional antivenoms, which can cost hundreds of dollars per dose, these AI-designed proteins may be easier and cheaper to mass-produce. That could matter in places where snakebite victims delay care or cannot afford treatment.
Torres and her collaborators — including researchers from the Technical University of Denmark, University of Northern Colorado and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine — are now focused on preparing the venom-neutralizing proteins for clinical testing and large-scale production.
The researchers said the same AI-driven approach could also be used to design precision treatments for viral infections, autoimmune diseases and other hard-to-treat conditions.
Source: blogs.nvidia.com.
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