🔬ESMFold2: The Bitter Lesson is Coming for Proteins - Alex Rives, BioHub
Protein language modelsAI for biologyScaling lawsProtein structure predictionProtein designMechanistic interpretabilityMetagenomic sequencingAntibody designVirtual cell modelsOpen scienceData generation
Alex Rives, Head of Science at Biohub, discusses ESM-C, a fourth-generation protein language model that leverages the "Bitter Lesson" of scaling with massive metagenomic datasets to achieve unprecedented protein structure prediction and design capabilities, including antibodies. He outlines Biohub's ambitious Virtual Biology Initiative, which aims to accelerate scientific discovery by generating scaled, multi-modal biological data and integrating it with AI models to create a new paradigm of programmable biology. The discussion emphasizes the importance of data, computational power, and feedback loops for building predictive digital representations of biological complexity, from molecules to entire cells.