Scientists at the University of Illinois have made it possible to command a computer to enhance a protein and a robot does all the work — no PhD needed. This new system mixes artificial intelligence with lab automation.

In a recent study, published in Nature Communications, researchers showed off a robotic setup that takes a protein’s fundamental makeup, experiments with hundreds of tiny tweaks and finds the best-performing version without any human stepping in to decide what to try next. The result is enzymes that work significantly better than before.

The team succeeded in boosting one plant enzyme’s ability to pick the right chemical by 90 times and made it 16 times faster at completing its job. They also upgraded a bacterial enzyme to work 26 times better at a pH level important for animal feed, potentially helping farmers and food producers.

The ease of the platform’s use is highly notable as it was trained to predict useful changes and could easily be operated by a layperson with simple, plain English commands. The testing, planning and analysis are all taken care of inside a modular robotic lab.

This could accelerate methods of creating better medicines, greener chemicals and more efficient industrial processes as protein design can be as simple as giving a computer a task.

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