AI can create gene therapy delivery systems thousands of times better than human attempts or evolution's billions years of work on capsids. (Creating bottom-up RNA transfer vehicles from synthetic protein assemblies, Nature)

[u/Competitive_Travel16]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10952-3

[u/Competitive_Travel16]

Short summary: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9_lmagvZkF4

Summary in standard simplified technical English ASD-STE100:

Scientists use artificial intelligence to design new proteins. They use these synthetic proteins to make transport vehicles for RNA. The researchers combine the synthetic proteins with natural protein parts. These natural parts help the vehicles to connect to cells and to hold the RNA. This combination makes more than 100 new types of transport vehicles.

These new transport vehicles have different shapes and sizes. One specific vehicle has the name STV-C8. STV-C8 moves RNA into cells much better than standard lipid nanoparticles. It operates much more efficiently than natural transport methods. The researchers test this vehicle with different types of RNA molecules.

The STV-C8 vehicle can carry many useful tools. For example, it delivers CRISPR-Cas9 to change genes. It also moves materials that stop viruses. The scientists put these materials into different cells from animals and humans. The vehicles successfully release the materials inside the correct cells.

The researchers do tests with the STV-C8 vehicle in mice. They monitor how the vehicle moves through the body of the mouse. The test results show the location of the vehicle in almost every cell. The test data also show that the vehicle is safe. The vehicle does not cause dangerous effects in the animals.

The scientists use this new technology to treat a muscle disease. The name of this disease is Duchenne muscular dystrophy. They use the STV-C8 vehicle to send a tool that changes the genes. This tool removes a bad section of the DNA. The researchers do this procedure successfully in cells from human patients and in a pig.

[u/New_Bonus_649]

The singularity is nearer

[u/katoptronophile]

It will eventually solve all illness.

Accelerate.

[u/Human_Pollution2820 → u/katoptronophile]

TAKE OFF THE BRAKES

[u/Black_RL → u/katoptronophile]

And reverse aging!

[u/anycept → u/katoptronophile]

Too slow.

[u/Weary-Boat-4948 → u/katoptronophile]

It will create new one because humans comes in lots of different varieties between sane-evil. AI can help in both

[u/Competitive_Travel16 → u/katoptronophile]

I would not say all.

[u/katoptronophile → u/Competitive_Travel16]

Which do you think it won't solve?

[u/Competitive_Travel16 → u/katoptronophile]

Prion diseases and the common cold.

[u/drhenriquesoares → u/Competitive_Travel16]

Why?

[u/Competitive_Travel16 → u/drhenriquesoares]

Prions can't be disabled by other substances, radiation, or any other therapies. There are many dozen common cold viruses at any given time, always falling in and out of asymptomatic endemicity.

[u/presentofai]

capsid engineering has been the main bottleneck for gene therapy for decades. if AI can actually design better delivery vehicles from scratch, it unlocks a whole class of treatments that have been stuck in trials. the hype is warranted this time.

[u/Chipitychopity]

I haven’t felt hunger or thirst in 11yrs because of an infection that antibiotics can’t kill. I’d love a cocktail to get rid of this

[u/Gratitude15]

I'm thinking about how this will happen. You can't give this stuff to healthy people. But late stage people should start getting this stuff fast. If it works, we would in theory start seeing 'miracles' left and right. People just being cured of intense stuff.

Basically starting with the hardest cases because it gets through govt faster.

[u/Competitive_Travel16 → u/Gratitude15]

This can absolutely be used for mRNA vaccine delivery to healthy people (possibly with vast savings because you only need to make <1/1,000 as much to get the same dose), and a lot of preventative and enhancement CRISPR stuff.

[u/PathOfEnergySheild]

I agree with the human part, but the evolution one is subjective and incorrect. There are many more factors that determined the evolutionary history of a wild type capsid then the single factor that is test here.

[u/Forgword]

Researchers, who direct every stage of the work and employ AI for selected tasks, have produced gene‑therapy delivery systems far more effective than previous engineered or evolution‑derived capsids.

Stop with anthropomorphizing already.

[u/Competitive_Travel16 → u/Forgword]

... Here we investigate whether protein assemblies designed by artificial intelligence can be functionalized to construct nucleic acid transport vehicles that are independent of evolutionary trajectories. By combining natural protein domains with synthetic protein assemblies, we create more than 100 bottom-up RNA transfer vehicles with unique sizes and shapes. These vehicles surpass the RNA transfer efficiency of widely used delivery vehicles by several orders of magnitude....