Posted by maziyar 3 days ago
Training mRNA Language Models Across 25 Species for $165
On top of that, we don't have a clear understanding on how certain positions (conformations) of a structure affect underlying biological mechanisms.
Yes, these models can predict surprisingly accurate structures and sequences. Do we know if these outputs are biologically useful? Not quite.
This technology is amazing, don't get me wrong, but to the average person they might see this and wonder why we can't go full futurism and solve every pathology with models like these.
We've come a long way, but there's still a very very long way to go.
I am a structural biologist working in pharmaceutical design and this type of thing could be wildly useful (if it works).
This guy shows a lot of how it's done: https://www.youtube.com/@thethoughtemporium
Basically you can design/edit/inject custom genes into things and see real results spending on the scale of $100-$1000.
Lab strains of things tend to be extremely sensitive and not human adapted. You shouldn't study and modify human-infecting organisms in your basement anyway. While you shouldn't ignore protective equipment and proper procedure... paranoia about infecting yourself with a lab leak isn't warranted.
JEPA is going to break the whole industry :D
Who says we don't?