Salesforce has created ProGen, a new AI system that can make artificial enzymes that can work just as well as real ones found in nature and uses language processing to learn about biology. It takes amino acid sequences and turns them into proteins.

The company said that ProGen speeds up the creation of new proteins, which can be used for many things like medicines or breaking down plastic in landfills. 

James Fraser, a scientist involved in the project said that it was possible to make specific types of enzymes, like ones that work well in hot temperatures or acid.

Salesforce scientists fed the database with amino acid sequences from 280 million different proteins. The AI made a million protein sequences, of which 100 were picked to test. Out of these, five were made into actual proteins and tested in cells. Two of the artificial enzymes were just as good at breaking down bacteria as the natural enzymes found in egg whites. None of them could make a proper Yorkshire Pudding though.

ProGen was made in 2020 using an LLM originally made for writing text,. The AI system learned the rules and structure of proteins by looking at a lot of data. With proteins, there are a tremendous number of possibilities, but ProGen can still make working enzymes, even when there is a wide variation among the results.